EXPERIENCE 143 | Dishing Up Great Food & Stewarding Legendary Restaurants with Alan Jantzen, Owner and Restaurateur at Silver Grill Cafe and Vern’s Place
For almost 30 years, Alan Jantzen was the man behind the scenes for what became one of the Fort Collins restaurant industry’s most dominant organizations - Hot Corner Concepts. Featuring amazing brands including Moot House, Austin’s American Grill, Big Al’s Burgers & Dogs, and Comet Chicken, Hot Corner Concepts set the standard for quality and consistency in our region. Along the journey, Alan was given many opportunities and lots of responsibility, but was never granted an opportunity to become an owner, and in the spring of 2021 he started looking for what’s next.
In September of 2021, he shot his shot - asking 42-year owner/operator John Arnolfo if he could buy the Silver Grill Cafe. “Absolutely not!” was John’s quick answer. But - within a few weeks they had a back-of-the-napkin deal worked out, and by December Alan was the proud owner of Dish Up, LLC DBA Silver Grill Cafe. In the meantime, Alan was approached by Val and Nick Lanteri, owners of Vern’s Place since 1990, to see if he was interested in stewarding their restaurant into its’ next chapter! He pushed pause on that conversation in the moment, but by mid-summer of 2022, Alan and his wife Jackie started Dish Up II, LLC DBA Vern’s Place, and now operate two classic restaurant institutions, with a total of 167 years of history - 90 years at Silver Grill Cafe and 77 years at Vern’s Place!
Alan got his start in the restaurant business as a teenager, and his mom drove him back and forth to Greeley from his hometown of Ault for a dishwashing job until he’d saved enough money to buy a car. He moved to Fort Collins and got a job at Moot House in his early 20’s, and was soon the right-hand-man for Scott McCarthy and Steve Taylor, then-partners in their first restaurant. His stories of restaurant launches and turnarounds and successes continues from there, and based on our conversation the successes at Silver Grill and Vern’s are very likely to continue. So please tune and enjoy my inspiring conversation with Alan Jantzen.
Check out Vern's Place
Check out Silver Grill Cafe
The LoCo Experience Podcast is sponsored by: Logistics Co-op | https://logisticscoop.com/
Follow us to see what we're up to:
Facebook
Music By: A Brother's Fountain
For almost 30 years, Alan Janssen was the man behind the scenes for what became one of Fort Collins Restaurant Industries most dominant organizations, Hot Corner Concepts. Featuring amazing brands including Moothouse, Austin's American Grill, Big Al's Burgers and Dogs, and Comet Chicken, Hot Corner Concepts set the standard for quality and consistency in our region. Along the journey, Alan was given many opportunities and lots of responsibility. But was never granted an opportunity to become an owner. And in the spring of 2021, he started looking for what's next. In September of 2021, he shot his shot asking 42 year owner operator, John or an awful, if he could buy the silver girl cafe. Absolutely not, was John's quick answer. But within a few weeks, they had Back to the Napkin Deal worked out, and by December, Alan was the proud owner of Dish Up, LLC, DBA Silver Girl Cafe. In the meantime, Alan was approached by Val and Nick Lanteri, owners of Vern's Place since 1990. To see if he was interested in stewarding their restaurant into its next chapter. He pushed pause on that conversation in the moment, but by mid summer of 2022, Alan and his wife, Jackie started dish up to LLC DBA Verne's place, and now operate two classic restaurant institutions with a total of 167 years of history. 90 years at silver grill and 77 at Verne's place. Alan got his start in the restaurant business as a teenager, and his mom drove him back and forth to Greeley from his hometown of Ault for a dishwashing job until he'd saved enough money to buy a car. He later moved to Fort Collins and got a job at the Mood House in his early 20s, and was soon the right hand man for Scott McCarthy and Steve Taylor, then partners in their first restaurant. His stories of restaurant launches and turnarounds and successes continue from then, and based on our conversation, the successes at Silver Grill and Verne's are very likely to continue. So please tune in and enjoy my inspiring conversation with Alan Jensen. Welcome back to The Loco Experience. I'm honored today to be joined by Al Jansen. And Al is the proprietor and restaurateur of Silver grill and Vern's in Northern Colorado doing business or a dish up and dish up, LLC, uh, doing businesses to stall, stall work, classic restaurants. Thank you very much for having me. Great to have you here. And, uh, just really excited to hear about your journey into, you know, being the caretaker, the host of Vern's and silver girl. I think it's such an interesting place in the world to fill those shoes. It's yeah, no pressure, right? Don't screw it up. Don't screw it up. First thing. I tell myself in the mirror every morning. Don't screw these restaurants up. Just have a good day. If you have a good day, work hard every day. The rest of it takes care of itself usually. Yeah, you know, fortunately those two places every day is a pretty good day. Yeah, great people. We have the Best guests in the world. So, and, uh, it's, it makes it pretty easy. What do you think your guest mix is maybe even respectively. So I guess for context, can we just describe the silver grill in brief? And we'll talk more about the background and stuff, but just describe it as a restaurant and then Verne's. And I want to. Focus in much especially on like tourists and non tourists and things like that Regulars and just your guests at what your breakdown is. That's a great question, you know, silver girl being 90 years old Happy birthday. Thank you But I'll take it it was you know Silver girl has just it's kind of I'm not sure what downtown looks like without silver grill anymore. You know, it's just, uh, it's been there since I remember my first trips into Fort Collins. And, uh, so that being a 90 year old business, uh, my wife and I are the fourth owners of that business, which I think is a You know, just really a fascinating right. Dis discussion all on its own because there hasn't been too many people that have owned it. But all of the families that is provided for over 90 years is, I think, a, a really amazing Right. Interesting study on, on how, how important that restaurant is to, to Fort Collins and the downtown, um, started off as a one room cafe. Mm-Hmm. and has grown now into five buildings. Is that right? We're breakfast and lunch only. So we're 7:00 AM to. Two p. m. Um, and the interesting thing about that is that the restaurant's really functioning for 24 hours a day, even though we're only open for seven hours. Is that right? You're prepping and baking rolls and different teams are coming on at night shifts and whatever. The size of the restaurant we see nearly 250 people when we're full capacity, really patios counters when everything's a real all full, full, we're just a shade under 250 people. So it takes a lot. How many square feet? That's a great question. We'll have to dial up John. I need, I need to phone a friend. Seems like maybe 5, 000. It's it's probably, it's gotta be in that five to 6, 000 range of the, you know, you factor in patios and kitchen space and office space, it, uh, it gets to be a pretty happy vibe. Thank you. Thank you. I, I think it does too. And that was really one of the big attractions to, to be in part of that history. Yeah. Yeah. You don't have to come in and fix the culture. You just have to come in and not break it. Exactly. Exactly. Just have some fun with it. And, uh, unfortunately we have a lot of people that like to play along with Verns. Verns is, you know. Completely the same, but completely different, you know, 10 minutes away and a very, um, you know, much more agricultural rural feel to that restaurant, but the same kind of appeal it's. It's great for me to be able to see people that dine three days a week in one building and two days a week in the other. You know, it's, it's fantastic. Uh, so many people cross over cause they have their, their, their favorite breakfast spots. Yeah. So, and unfortunately we, we happen to be, um. Two of the more popular for, for that meal part. Um, I never go to breakfast at Burns because it's always on my way home from a motorcycle ride or something like that. I, I guess I should have breakfast first and then go on a ride. Yes, you should. It's, it's, you know, I hear a lot of those people that are, you know, I'm, uh, I'm silver grill all during the winter. Uh, but in the summer I eat at Burns because I can sit on the, on that deck and see the mountains. Now, did you build that deck? No, I wish I could take credit for that because I think it's truly one of the most special places. It is amazing to be able to watch the sun come up behind you and light those mountains up. It's, I'm not sure there's many better places in Fort Collins. And Burns is. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner though, right? Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Early dinner. Uh, we just actually launched a fried chicken program where we're, uh, we bought an old, new technology into an old piece of equipment. So we bought some broasters. So, the pressure fryers. And so we're doing broasted fried chicken. I had some. That was a special when I was there a month ago. It was delicious. It was amazing. It's a, it, that's been really fun. And, you know, for me, a, a place like that, you know, kind of that roadside diner feel, uh, Oh, it just screams fried chicken. So, uh, so that was, that was really fun to bring that in and, um, and show that to, to that clientele and the reception that we've got there has been phenomenal. You sell a lot of chicken just. Pick it up and take it to go. That's growing. It's growing. I wouldn't doubt it. You know. We kind of, it's been a soft, kind of a quiet launch. We special day and then we've started kind of releasing more and more of it out. Now it's on our online ordering. Okay. We're hoping that, you know, it's kind of our, our bump for the winter months. Well, and I could see honestly, like going by Vern's on the way up for a camping weekend and be like, I want to get the 14 piece chicken. Uh, family meal or 10 piece or whatever and, uh, you know, we'll eat that when we get up to Redfeather. Exactly. We, any of the, um, chicken that we don't sell, you know, we have a time limits that we limit on our chicken. And when it gets out of time limit, we cool that down and we sell it cold. And that's been fun to watch people grabbing cold fried chicken. It's one of my favorite things. It's one of my favorite things too. Cold pizza and cold fried chicken. For sure. It never gets old, Vern. I never warm up cold pizza. No. No. I'm not sure you're supposed to. Is Vern's a similar size as far as operation and then it's got a gift store and stuff too, right? It's smaller. Uh, in the, in the size of numbers of people, you know, inside we see it about a hundred and the, uh, the deck will be, you know, another 50 to 60, depending on the configuration out there. Um, so a little bit smaller in number of bodies, kitchen's quite a bit smaller. Um, and then we do, we have, we still have the gift shop. It, uh, it kind of went away there for a little while. Oh. Um, and Nick and Val brought it back and I'm so glad they did. That's the previous owners, I guess. Previous owners, yep. And were they, like how old is Vern's in contrast? Vern's is 46. Okay. So, you know, again, here we're coming up on an 80th for celebration for that place, which is going to be exciting. How do we top the 90th? Well, we're going to have to figure out an 80th. Right. Um. So yeah, that's going to be pretty fun. You mean it was started in 46? Started in 1946. Gotcha. And, uh, you know, and again, a lot of foresight into, into that and grabbing that great piece of property and putting something there. And, you know, again, you know, just a few, a few times has it changed hands. And is it a gas station too? Used to be, used to be. And that was my trick, you know, in high school, stopped there for gas up, grab a cinnamon roll, bottle of pop, go fishing. You know, I could get my license. I could get some bait. I could get, you know, I could even get a fishing rod there if I, if I had to. But that's all out now? That's all out. It's a little bit more, um, refined now. It's a, it's shrunk down a little bit from the size it used to be as far as that gift shop. And, uh, for a while they did, they were doing so much in the way of. Lottery tickets and, you know, all license Oh, oh, the C store, gas station fishing licenses. It was, it really? Yeah. It really was a full C-store and uh, you know, now it's more just a, um, you know, a lot of memorabilia. Yeah. Um, and some, you got great, I don't know who your designer is for your T-shirts and stuff, but I was like kind of wanting to buy. A few of those when I was in there last time, we may have to get you one. The Kirsten, uh, she's one of the, one of our management team out there. She is responsible for that entire place. And I tease her constantly because it's like, uh, it's like going into Santa's workshop, you know, it's always different. I never, she never has anything in the same place. You know, it's, she's always moving things around, keeping it interesting. And it's just a passion that she has to make it look nice, look interesting, and always be relevant. Right. Well, and you know, stuff becomes irrelevant and then becomes worth nothing. It becomes worth negative money in a retail setting because you can't even hardly give it away if people don't want it. Exactly. Coming from selling food all the time where, you know, you have this fixed amount of time to try to sell the product when it comes in the back door to have having a retail element now. Right. A whole different. Animal for me to try to figure out, you know, I guess if you hang on to it long enough, it becomes cool again, maybe, but you really don't want to do that. We talk about inventory turn times and stuff like that, especially with retail. So always gotta be moving. So your background, um, for quite a few years, over 10, 20 years, almost maybe was with hot corner concepts. I'm going to blow your mind. It was actually 30 years. Oh boy. 30 years I was with Hot Corner Concepts. So you started there just as a puppy. Oh, I'm a mature puppy. I was 22 when I started at Hot Corner and it was really basically just the moothouse at that time. Oh really? They were doing some other smaller projects. Okay. And, uh, I think the timing was good for me. I had started in the restaurant business when I was 15. Um, I worked as a pot and pan dishwasher for the holiday. That was my first job for the granary restaurant in, uh, Fargo, North Dakota. Ah, I'm going to want to jump all the way in the time machine, um, to, and like, learn where you came from even, but I want to talk about the, the. transition out of Hot Corner, uh, and into Silver Girl first and Verne's next. And then we'll jump in the time machine. You told me part of that story and I was like, oh, that's really cool. I don't know how much you are willing to share in a public forum. But John Arnolfo? Is that how you say his name? Yep. Um, John, um, I kind of always knew John, but I didn't know John. Okay. Uh, John was, um, in my mind, You know, for 30 years of working in downtown restaurants, uh, he was kind of the godfather, you know, he, you know, kind of had his own special thing going, you know, he was very well known, very well liked, um, but, you know, he was, yeah, he could be very easy if he wanted to easily, easily, he just, uh, he knows everybody's got such a, a charm and an ease about him that you just want to. Be near him and yeah, he's got a magnetism for sure I've never really gotten to know him, been introduced a couple times in passing, but wonderful man Yeah, and I can't I can't really say enough about him because without John I wouldn't be here today talking to you about Silvergrill Yeah Yeah, he really made it possible. So we, uh, and when did he acquire the silver back? He's had it for 43 years. Really? Yeah. So he, he will tell you 42. I give him 43 cause he was two months shy of 43, but he only says 42. I give him, I round up. Was it the size that it is now already then, or did he grow it? And his stories about that, about his. foresight in and seeing opportunity and being such an entrepreneur and acquiring those buildings It's it's one of the most amazing stories That I've ever heard. It is really a man who pulled him up by his bootstraps Really? Future guests he needs to be well his stories need to be told You know his his vision for Bringing a cinnamon roll to downtown Fort Collins. You know, I mean, I can't thank him enough. I'm glad, whatever, what somebody was helping me because, uh, they tapped him on the shoulder and said, make cinnamon rolls. And he listened and, uh, and it's grown. Oh, so he brought the cinnamon rolls that wasn't part of the silver girl experience before then. That was not part of the lore. He brought that on. Okay. So he developed, that, developed the, the recipe and everything that was, uh, happening. There were the Verne cinnamon rolls. Created completely independently? Yes, there was. Those are the best two. Johnson's Corner has an argument, but they're way down there, right? Yeah, they're not up here, you know. And yours are a little better anyway, probably. Well, you know, I might be a little biased. They were the two heavyweights duking it out every year for the best cinnamon roll. And, uh, there was a brief amount of time where a baker had left, uh, Burns. Oh. And had gone to silver grill. So, you know, I think in and amongst the baking world, there was some thought that maybe they were the same recipe. And I can confirm and assure you they are completely different. There's not, aside from the cinnamon, sugar, and flour, that's about where, about where it ends. Okay, I like it. The special sauces are much different. Yes! But you're not sharing. Uh, you know, we'll see what the episode two looks like. Let's see if I can get you on to some more bourbon. Yeah, some more bourbon. Keep me talking long enough. We, we just did the, uh, at the, uh, tailgate during the homecoming football game. Oh, sure. Yeah. We did, um, our first ever, uh, cinnamon roll showdown. Oh. And we let people try one of each and, and vote, um, Of your pecan and your regular, you mean? Just of Burns and Silver Grip. Oh, yeah, duh. And it was, it was really, uh, The energy was amazing. It was very, very fun to watch. Is the results public? The results are public. So, uh, the cinnamon roll showdown annual event, number one, Silver Grill took this one. Oh, so a little bit of a home turf advantage there, right? At CSU. Got the Leporticans coming down, but not as many of them. Uh, it was, it was a boy in there. People are just. It's so fun to watch people be so fanatical. No fights broke out or nothing like that. No, but I certainly had fingers in my face. Don't screw up this cinnamon roll. And it was on both sides. I like it. It was really fun. And to be able to, to be able to represent both and, uh, and just enjoy the show was really fun. I like that. So to get back to John, encircle me a little bit when, when this. Cause, I mean, John was, John looks younger than he is. I introduced him as my younger brother. He's 72 years old. But, I mean, it was kind of obvious to, probably even the community at large, that John's not going to want to work here as much as he does for too many more years. Yeah, I think John had a very, um, He was in a very good place at the, at the, at that time, even coming out of COVID. Cause remember when I bought that, we were still table spaced in masks and we had a lot of, uh, regulations still imposed on the business. Um, a little, you know, a little bit frightening to. To undertake that at that time, but John had weathered most of the storm already. Right. And, uh, you know, the business was really showing signs of a lot of life. And what circuit me here? This is like, maybe mid 21 uh, December 17th, 2021. Don't ever ask me for advice on how to buy a restaurant. Christmas week, during a pandemic, we decide to jump ship after 30 years and buy our own restaurant. Wow. Wow. Wow. It was, it was an education. That's for sure. I'm sure. But the team was, our staff was amazing. They lifted us right up, adopted us right in, and we just ran with it. And we've been running ever since. Is that when the conversation started or that was the close? That was the close. The conversation started, I believe, you know, it would probably be late August of that year. Do you think navigating that pandemic was part of his willingness to sell or would he? Or just getting to know you or tell me what his motivations were, do you think? You know, again, I, I wish I knew a lot of people that wanted to just quit being in business after that Covid stuff. Well, I think, yeah, I think that kind of ran through all of our brains. I wasn't, I wasn't, you know, necessarily shopping for a restaurant when I, um, decided to make my exit. It was a, I was, I was shopping for, you know, something. Something. Oh, something else. And I didn't know what it was. Oh, gotcha. At the time. And, um, John and I have a mutual friend who's in banking. Okay. And, um, I would show him all of these great ideas that I had and he would shoot them down one after another and tell me that that was not a great idea. And, uh, I had came to him with a, uh, Uh, sandwich shop, um, that I thought, ah, this would be perfect for me. I could have this sandwich shop. And he sat me down. He said, I'm absolutely not loaning you money for that. And, uh, You'll be a slave to the sandwich shop and you're going to hate your life for the rest of the time. It's not going to work. And he said. The words, and I'll never forget, um, Rex's words to me. They were, Alan, you're a downtown restaurant guy. Buy a restaurant in downtown Fort Collins. Yeah. And I was like, well. This is a Rex Smith call, I guess. Rex Smith call. And, uh, and I said, you know, Rex, I had. The ones I thought I was going to buy aren't for sale anymore. You know, what, now what do I do? And he said, there's other great opportunities down here. And I'm ratcheting through my brain all of the other restaurants that are downtown. I'm not coming up with anything. And he said, dummy, call John. Call John at Silver Grill. I sat back and I was like, nobody calls John. Oddly enough, I did have John on my phone. I don't know why, uh, but I did have John on my phone. I sat on that for about a month and, uh, decided, you know, I better, you know, I, I better make a call. And, uh, so I called John and asked him out for breakfast. So was this like a pocket listing? Basically, John must have mentioned to Rex that he was interested in entertaining or it wasn't even that far? Wasn't even that far. Yeah. It was just, uh, I think... Rex was just his customer. Yeah. Just recognizing both. Well, and when you're a good banker, you recognize the value of the win win and, um, just seeing an opportunity for a really good caretaker to be the next phase. That's a, that's a great compliment. Um, I'll take it. Uh, you know, and, uh, uh, I think that's, that's what Rex had told me. And, uh, it was a. We were kind of off to the races. You know, I asked John out, uh, about an hour into my breakfast. I was stammering around trying to come up with more things to talk about. And he said, why am I here? So I'd love to buy your restaurant. He said, Oh, absolutely not. Um, and I said, well, at least I made a good friend today. And he said, you absolutely did that. And I said, uh, you know, I'll, I'll see you around. Let's, you know, I'm, I'm, yeah, I'm, yeah. And he said, I'm probably good for this for another two to five years. And he had a good thing going, solid management team in place. He's obviously had it dialed in, you know, doing it for 40 some odd years. He was, uh, he was pretty clicking along pretty good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, and I mean, he'll never make as much income off of his investments from whatever he sold it to you as operating the restaurant well. And you still got to operate it then. Exactly, exactly. And how many chips do you want? Yep. Ultimately. It was... And so you had left Hot Corner Concepts already. No. You hadn't, but you had decided to. Yeah, I had, I had decided it was time for me to move on. Yeah. And, uh, uh, you know, after 30 years and there's a place on Mountain Avenue that has my name on it. Yeah. Um, it was a, it was a very... I met my wife in the Moothouse in 92. We started dating in 93. Um, we didn't get married of course, until 2017, which is a different story. That's episode three for us. And, uh, so there was a lot of great memories, a lot of great connections, you know, really, it was, uh, my family, my friends, um, I want to go through a lot of that journey as well, I think. Um, and then. So you work out a deal with John in a few months, really. Yeah. He calls you back and says, you know, maybe we should talk again? Yeah, it was, he called me back maybe the next day and said, let's, let's get together again. Um, we, uh, we set a time and it was, it was a little bit. It's a little tricky. I'm still employed. I'm still very gainfully employed. And I don't want to screw that up. You can't use your Mood House income or your Hot Corner Concepts income to qualify for the loan that you need from Rex. Exactly. So, I was in a little bit of a funny situation. John hadn't really discussed this with his management team or, you know, any future plans. So John was in a little bit of a funny situation. So we were trying to figure out where to go, where to meet. So where did you meet? We, we, first we were going to meet at, um, uh, the, uh, Oh, The steakhouse out by the mall. And I can't think of it. It's so the long, long horn. So we're going to meet at Longhorn cause nobody was there. Nobody, we didn't know anybody. Okay. That could be safe. Uh, so we got about halfway there and, uh, he said, change of plans. Let's go to Chalvino. So we decided to go to Chalvino. We walked in and they were. Closed on that day, whatever it was, it might've been a Monday or something. They happened to be closed. And, uh, John and I both looked at each other and I was like, I don't know. What, what do we do now? Do we go to the library? What do we do? Cause I don't really, I, I, I can't go to a coffee shop. I, you can't go to here there. We just know too many people. So we ended up back at his lovely house. He's got a great house. So we went back to his house and that's where all of our future meetings happen. It's just at his, and it was, it couldn't have been more perfect for me to be honest with you, because we did all of the deal in about. or three meetings across his dinner table. And that was about as good as it gets for me. It was a handshake. It was literally, but you know, it was done. I knew it was done. He knew it was done. I trusted him. He trusted me. Um, I had some things I had to get done. He had some things he had to get done. Uh, we struggled with. COVID running through his lawyer's office twice, my, my lawyer went to hike volcanoes in Hawaii on a great COVID deal. Uh, so our, our, our, we had a November one, uh, kind of a timeframe that I wanted to take it, uh, that ended up getting pushed out about six more weeks into December. Got it closed before the year end though, so that's a success. Exactly, we got it done, and uh, and it all worked out for the better, but, and it wouldn't have happened without John though, and that's, I think that's the, the thing, John, you know, really pushing it, and being such a creative thinker on the financial piece of it, cause that's not, that's not me, that's not my world, I am a, I'm what's in front of me. I tackled the problem and I moved forward. He's thinking about these creative financial opportunities for both of us to make it a win, win, minimizing some taxes on him, minimizing taxes for him, helping me in the long run. Uh, I mean, I didn't, uh, after when I gave him the down payment, I was flat broke. We were, I had nothing. I had nothing. I'd never written a check that big in my life. You can't even understand my, my. My signature. I'm not sure what it looks like. Most of your net worth. It was, it was everything I, we had bought off my wife and I had convinced my wife coming out of the 2009, um, housing debacle to buy 42 acres in Loveland and farm. Wow. And so we had done really well on that and we used that to finance the whole thing. So here I am, um, Risking everything leveraged up as much as you've ever leveraged up and not a comfortable job and quit my job. So we, uh, then John turns around and says, you know what, I'm going to give you my inventory. So you're making money day one. I, I, I can't say enough about the man and how he invested in me over just such a short time and, and allowed me to take on, well, you know, it's his legacy in a lot of ways. And that sets his legacy up for success under its new caretaker. Well, I hope so. And how long before the Verne's conversation came along? Verne's. This, okay, I'll let the cat out of the bag. The Vern's conversation actually started while I was negotiating with John. Oh, really? I got a call one day and said, you know what? We're in this, this situation. We'd like to exit that situation. We'd love for you to buy our restaurant. Had to go, wow, this is crazy. You know, I'm here. I've never had four weeks and I had to say, I'm sorry, I can't do it. And I said, Oh, you're buying somebody else's restaurant. Aren't you? And I said, Oh, how now that's great. How would you ever guess that? How would you come to that conclusion? But, uh, did you know? Uh, Nick, I had known Nick for quite a while and Nick and Val, salt to the earth, great people, great operators, um, wonderful family, um, just, you know, kind of in the same boat coming out of those two or three years of, uh, of COVID and the stresses and all of that. And they were just like, you know, it's, it's time for us to do something. Like we've built enough wealth to retire comfortably and now let's. do that before. And, you know, for a lot of people, we've seen people die, like not more, not from COVID than from COVID in the time since that time. But it like heightened our awareness of, you know, I only got so many more trips around the sun in me. And so why am I working my fingers to the bone when I've got enough resources to do what I need? And My kids and my grandkids can figure it out. I'm going to spend some of this Bless every one of them first for coming to that conclusion Terrible stories about people that retire and then within a year there they've passed. Yeah, and I'm like, oh man, that's what a You work that hard for this reward at the end, and then you don't get to reap it. I couldn't be more happy for both of them. Both of them have taken great, wonderful. I was going to say, John's been taking, shaking his tail feather from what I hear. He's been doing all right. Probably Nick and Amy too. Or Nick and Val, sorry. And they just came back from a European trip. So you put them on pause and they're like, okay, did they never went public with it being for sale or anything? They kept that to themselves. And, uh, I, my. One of my great stories about, uh, Nick and Val are, they were such great supporters of mine and when they found out I was, I was going to do something else. And, uh, their restaurant happened to be closed on Mondays, uh, and Silver Grill worked seven days a week. And, uh, they ate. Breakfast. If there's 52 Mondays in the year, they ate 48 of them. And so really, and would fill me in. They would, first thing was, how are you, how are things going? Uh, and how's the business, how you feeling? Um, all of these wonderful questions. We kind of just, you know, kind of just kept consulting one another. And, uh, then it became, you know, we're going to, we're going to jump back in all the way in the restaurant, take it back over and we'll do that under the auspice that you buy it from us. And I said, Oh, sure. Yeah, that's great. I can do that. Yeah. You know, I'm not, I'm four months into my own game. I'm pretty sure my banker says my financial statement is tapped out. And they said, well, you know, we'll, we'll be there. We'll, we'll do it for a year. And they, um, Bless them on, uh, you know, 1st of January, they came in with a letter and said, here's, here's our offer to you to buy our business. And I can't imagine, you know, a compliment, um, that's that, that's that deep, you know, from, from here. Adopt my child. Yeah. Yeah. It was, it was, I can't take care of it anymore. I just see what you can do. And so we, you know, that was, well, that's a lot tougher deal because Verne's wasn't, I assume they must have had some not them management for a season or something at least because it it wasn't I I'm an old banker, right? Yeah, I can tell when a restaurant's making a lot of money and when it's not making a lot of money And they were doing okay But there was at least seasons there where it wasn't as fun as it used to be exactly exactly And I think you know, there's always a new You know, there's a thousand ways to skin the cat, right? A new sense of energy and, uh, and just a different set of eyes on things. Breeds a little bit of energy back into the building and into the team. And, uh, um, my, my management team, Paul Hudson, who's, who runs a place for me. Kurt, I can't, I can't think of a guy better, more suited and more capable. One of my best friend, you know, to, to go run a, a location. Oh wow. You know? So, uh, we really Do you still live from Mo House or Hot Corner? He did come from Mo. I, I was, stool is a harsh word. He makes his own decision. I'm not borrowing him either, though. Uh, he's lacked. Um, no. Well, that, you know, unfortunately, or to whatever extent that's. A great social capital resource for you because nobody trains them better hardly than we, you guys did. Well, we, we, uh, we, we did a lot of great work and, you know, I think, um, even, even managers that worked for me in the past that contact me still talk about the coaching tree, you know, and, uh, And, uh, how, you know, they, they learned and were able to develop from me, and then they learned and developed other people as well, and, um, I, I think that's a, another great compliment, and, uh, That's really cool. I think we should, uh, we're approaching that time, we should jump back in the time machine and kind of, Learn about the coaching tree and things like that. I mean, a lot of this conversation will be your career in hot corner, I imagine. But there's a lot of chapters to that. I didn't realize mood house was first. I thought Austin's was first. Honestly, mood house was first. That was, must've been way on the South side of town at that time. Oh, it was down in the boonies. It was out there. Remember it had the old hotel wrap. Well, I didn't get here until 99, but I know Spiro since I moved to town. And you know, when he built Palmer flowers, not too far away, that was like. At the end of the gravel road, just about right on harmony. You were up to no good, right? Nobody goes out there. Um, so, you know, Mood House had, uh, it was, again, it was a unique, interesting time. Um, I came about four years into Scott and Steve, um, having purchased the Mood House. So they were getting their feet underneath them and they're, you know, getting a little bit of a war chest put together. Um, but they lacked was, uh, you know, manpower and, and people. And I came from, as I said, I started as a, let's start, let's go five, uh, five years old, five years old, grew up young man, Nebraska, uh, uh, out by Beatrice in between Beatrice and Beatrice. And, uh, yeah, you say it, right? Steve Wenzel, uh, is a. Kid that I went to banker school with, and he, he was from Beatrice. It's a great place to grow up. Yeah. It's a great place to grow up. He talked about, uh, catching catfish, noodling. Did you ever do any noodling? Didn't do any noodling. We used to hook. That's smart. So we, yeah, we grew up there. We had a family dairy. It's like south of Omaha, almost kind of. South of Lincoln. South of Lincoln more. Yep, yep. About a little over an hour outside of Lincoln. Um, you know, right in that. Blue river, Missouri river valley area, great farm, ground, hills, very green, very humid, very hot, very, very cold, 10 foot tall corn, 10 foot tall corn. We had, uh, you know, very, very modest. My, my mom and dad had a trailer home set up on our acreage. Okay. We had, uh, the only thing you could see from our front porch was the Lutheran church, which is about a mile away from our house. And, um, Was he a farmer? Um, dad was a, a farmer. Okay. Um, you know, and dairyman. Okay. Yeah. And, uh, and had, um, we have to get him in here now. Uh, but he had, he was, he was also raising sheep at the time. Oh really? And, uh, one of my favorite memories of being a very young man was the Nebraska snowstorm that came in and, um, wind blowing, very humid, lots of snow. And the snow piled up. And you're being from Fargo, you know this Yeah. Snow. It actually worked perfectly to create stair steps up and down for the sheep to walk right out of that pen Exactly dad just you know out there doing whatever it takes to make sure that those animals are safe and where they belong Well in for Most people don't know anything about the life of a dairyman, especially back in those days. I mean, was it 30, 50, a hundred cows, something like that? A hundred, about a hundred cows. Okay. And that's, that's a lot. About as many as one man. Yeah, yeah. Can handle. It was the two brothers working together. Okay, yep. And, uh, my dad had a young family and my uncle was just getting married. Okay, yep. And, uh, now it became, okay, can you support two families. Yeah. With a hundred cows. Right. And milk prices going up and down. And, uh, my dad was a substitute milker for his best high school friend. And so four days a year or something dad would go. Um, and he would do it like give Wendell, uh, a week, uh, a weekend away with his wife and something like that, you know, because otherwise you're married to it. It's like, you're up at 5am or 4am and working until. Noon, and then you do a second milking in the afternoon or something like that. And then you're done at eight and then you're done. It's just what it is until you wake up at five or four. That's just how it works. And you don't. I guess you don't think of it and stuff in the middle of raising corn or gathering sheep, whatever. Get to rest when you're sitting on the track, actually turn the radio on and actually shut down for a little while. Just, I got to just keep in a straight beautiful place to grow up and be from, you know, not a lot of the same advantages that you offered here. Yeah. No, yeah. My dad saw that and, uh, exited the, uh, the family business. That was part of the, Hey, we got one dairy with two families and it's just, isn't going to work. It just doesn't, how, how does that work? And, uh, they were smart enough to, to, um, separate and, uh, um, We came to Colorado and, uh, How old were you then? Oh, I was, I was young. I was in that probably eight to ten years old. Okay. Yeah. And, uh, you know, I can remember the first time, uh, my brother and I were outside and we heard sirens, you know. Right. Never heard a cop car before. Right. That was crazy. And, uh, um, and where'd you move to? We moved to, uh, first place was in Lakewood, but they're briefly settled in Thornton, um, before it was Thornton. Um, it was really, it was kind of the boonies of North Denver at the time. You could hop on your bike and ride to the lake and fish. And so even though we had neighbors and there was a lot of people living around us, it was still allowed me, you know, a little bit of a, a childhood. Yeah. To go do things. So you have a free range. So I still have some free range. That didn't last real long until we came to Northern Colorado and my dad, uh, relocated us back up here and, uh, and. And what did he get into after? My dad's always been a small animal specialist. So he was a lamb buyer when we first moved to Colorado. Uh, he managed, um, uh, what is now the double J feedlots outside of, uh, of Alt, uh, when we first moved there. Big sheep operation. Big sheep operation there. 10, 000 sheep or something. Oh yeah, it's unbelievable. And, uh, you know, great family. I also know them. I, Jeff, uh, was, I graduated high school. You could probably introduce me to three years worth of podcast guests if you wanted to. It's wonderful people. I'm blessed to know them. A lot of great people. And uh, so yeah, so we settled there. I graduated. You know, from Alt high school, 1987, about 30 kids, um, great, you know, a unique little town, a unique little town. Um, Alt's about as close to my hometown as, as anything right around here. I mean, we don't, we're not as, mine wasn't as big, but it wasn't quite as independent from other towns around it. Alt was, you know, 30 years ago or something. You didn't leave all to go to Fort Collins for things, but once a month or two or something. No, no, no, no. Yeah, it was a, it was a, you know, it's a very, it's a very tight knit. town, you know, probably 30 or 50 families that mostly make up all of it. Yup. Yup. Back in the day. Yeah. Back in the day. And now, now it's a thriving little, yeah. Yeah. Great. Uh, I mean, they're building houses like crazy around there and it looks great. Yeah. Uh, my mom, um, uh, my dad stayed on, you know, Ended up at Centennial Livestock as a small animal specialist. Um, and, uh, my mom ran the Salvation Army store in Greeley, Colorado for 35 years. Yeah. Well, you guys are, uh, stick with one thing, don't, don't, don't jump around hunting for jobs. I like it. Well, what, what a, what a blessing to that organization though, right? Like I, I, you know, my, my mom and dad are obviously, you know, my heroes. Um, they're what they did for me without even knowing what they were doing for me. Uh, it was, it was amazing. You know, the, yeah. You know, watching my mom, um, I'm not sure my mom ever made more than 12 bucks an hour for Salvation Army. And it was, uh, it was a passion and a love for the people that shopped with her. She knew most of them by name. Um, and she would introduce us all. Uh, it was, it was really, it was very, um, It was very touching when you think back on what my mom did for that community. Right. It was really all about community for my mom. Yeah. So, stuck with it forever. That's really cool. And the same for my dad, you know, it was all about community for him. Yeah. It was that ag community, that small animal community. You know, he, there's somebody that had, Sheeps or goats or any, anything from, oh, anything, anything from, you know, Texas to Montana, from Utah to Iowa. He knows them all, you know, yeah, he just knows them all. That's in each state. That's his community. Yeah. So, um, it's, it's great, you know, and at Vern's now I get to see all those people that worked with my dad or met my dad and now I get to reconnect with them. That's a cool thing. On a different side. Plus they think you're young. Maybe. I hope so. I've got them fooled. So, 15 years old. Tell me, before we go there, what kind of a kid were you? Were you, like, in that kind of agriculture, rural environment? Yeah, I think I'm like all... Well, I'm not all of them. I think I'm like a lot of those kids, you know, you spend the first 18 years of your life working like heck to get off of the farm to spend the next 20 years of your life trying to get back on. You know, I think, yeah, I think I'm like a lot of those kids. Uh, I wanted, you know, I would. My friends all lived in town, uh, they had cable TV and they got pizza delivered to their door. Uh, if we forgot to buy milk, I probably didn't get milk that week, you know, till we went back to the grocery store on that Saturday. So it just kind of was. And, uh, um, so there was a lot of, uh, things that, that there, I, I wanted to experience, you know, that I thought town would bring to me. Um, and, uh, in school. Very active in a lot of stuff. I was, uh, an athlete, um, and, uh, enjoyed that, you know, always into student councils and kind of I was fortunate to be kind of, you know, be a captain or on student good athlete and you were pretty smart. So, all right. You know, I faked it way. It was a small school, small school, low bar for me. Uh, so, and I, and I had, and I had great. Peers, you know, I had, I had some really great kids that I grew up with. And, uh, um, so it was, it was, it was a Wonderful childhood, you know, really my parents didn't have anything, but I never wanted for anything. Yeah. Yeah, I didn't know any better I thought I had everything fair, you know, so it was great. So tell me about this first job first job I can't say enough about my parents my I wanted a car mom and dad said great. How you gonna do that? You know I guess I'm going to get a job. So my mom let me hitch a ride with her into town, into Greeley. Uh, I walked up and down eighth Avenue and I filled out applications at every place I could. Uh, about three days later, Danny Shaver from the Holiday Inn called me and offered me a dishwashing job. Uh, trick was, I don't have a car and it's all nights and weekends because I'm in school. Oh, right. So, and it's about a. Two hour bicycle ride for all to Greeley. It's about a two hour bicycle ride, and that wasn't going to happen either. Um, and so my, my mom would get off of work, come home, pick me up, drive me all the way back to Greeley, drop me off, so I could wash dishes for the, Holiday Inn. Two and a half bucks an hour I was making. Wow. And, then she'd come back at ten, ten thirty, eleven o'clock at night. Wow. Pick me up. Take me home. Good thing gas was cheaper then. Yeah. Yeah. Otherwise I wouldn't have penciled. No. No, no, no. And especially because it was all just for me to learn a lesson. You know, and how to, how to buy my own stuff and take care of my own things. And, uh. It was, you know, that, that went on for months. Um, and, uh, you know, do the same thing on the weekends, haul me in first thing on a Saturday morning. As soon as you had enough money, you could get a car. Yep, I had to I had to get a driver's license, and then it was off to the races. Yeah. And of course, I didn't leave there until I was 22. Is that right? I left there as the assistant general manager of the property. Well, at least they moved you up. Yeah, I did graduate, uh, a few stops on the way. Uh, I, I was then I was at 22 years old. Um, the company sells and I worked for a small group. There was eight properties. Uh, the, all the properties were selling one by one, mine sold. And. I was fired and they brought in a team of people to replace me. Some of the people that they had brought from other locations. Uh, so they, in the same conversation, they fired me, but I was in charge of all the food and beverage operations. So at 22 years old and, uh, they. Uh, then asked me to stay on, uh, in a consulting role and then retrain all those folks. And, uh, so, so I was like, well, I, I don't have a job, so if you're offering, I guess I should take it. You should have probably squeezed it for a little more dough than they were offering. Yeah. Now that you know more. Now that I know more. The years of education. Yeah. Uh, so that, that's happening and, but at least you get like a four month or a three month kind of. Exactly. I have a little, I have a little runway and, um, not, not saying that I did great at being a consultant because now I'm like, I don't know, mostly looking for other jobs, me to consult for myself. Um, and, uh, again, you know, a lot of fortunate times in my life where the. People I was connected to just were kind of looking out for me. Um, and one of my, uh, sales reps happened to be a guy by the name of Kevin Yancey, uh, Yancey's produce and Fort Collins. Um, and he said, Hey, buddy, I'm I know you, I know you need a job and I'll take care of you. So I've got a job for you. And that job is on the docks, learn how to do the docks and work your way up. And I was like, well, great. I can start that right away. And it was five 50 an hour. Loading trucks overnight. And, uh, my end of my consulting time was coming up. I had another friend who is my Cisco sales rep and said, I know these two guys in Fort Collins that are always looking for good people. You should go meet with them. So I got my day job. So I was working from eight to four at the moothouse Tuesday through Saturday as the grill cook. And then I was working from around six or seven o'clock at night till whenever we finished loading trucks, which could be. Anywhere from two in the morning to six in the morning, and I was doing that from Sunday to Day, Sunday to Friday. So you were literally working like 80 hours a week. I was literally working 80 hours a week and I was sleeping in my car before I'd go into work at the mood house and they would wake me up. I had, uh, I'd gotten a membership at the gym, uh, across the road and so I could shower in between. Right. And, uh, fortunately Scott and Steve allowed us to eat free salad bar if we worked there. So I ate some free salad bars and, uh, my mom and dad let me move back into their house so I would get off Saturday. Did you just save money? I just saved money. I was, I was deep in debt. I was, uh, I had found every way to spend money. Um, including, uh, you know, being the, the biggest partier in town as well. I see, we missed part of this. Yeah. Yeah, well, and that was the days when, like, you couldn't walk across a campus or even across most intersections without somebody putting a credit card application in your face. Oh, exactly. Free jacket or some bullshit to sign up and yeah, American Express and a visa all maxed out. Oh boy. I was, uh, about 20, 000 in debt when I lost my job. And, uh, so, which seemed like a mountain. That seemed like a hole I was never going to get out. Probably didn't even make 20, 000 a year. No, no. I was making, at my peak, I think I was making 18, 000. Right. So, uh, how was I going to do that? And so now I go from making, you know, at least a salary. So do you find responsibility or where did you find time for partying? In the midst of this, um, the partying during work, probably. Just kidding, Steve. Oh yeah. That dried me up pretty quick when you're making five bucks an hour. Well, 80 hour weeks will dry you up pretty good. Yeah, that definitely did it. So, uh, yeah, so I was, I was like, you know, I, I made this mess, uh, I'll clean it up, uh, so I just started working and paying bills and, uh, learning how to. Yeah. You know, for the first time in my life. Yeah. You know, at 22 years old there, I'm finally, you know, having to figure out some stuff that most people have figured out when they're 15, 16 years old. You used to have figured out. Now it's about 28 is the average curve, I think, in our society. I think you might be right. That's when people move out of their parents house. Yeah. Anyway. Oh. Unfortunately, my mom and dad let me move back in. I slept, uh, you know, from s I'd get home Saturday evening around 5, 6 o'clock and, uh, I'd, uh, had, had Sleep most of Sunday. Basically 24 hours until I had to go back to work. Wow. And so, uh, I'd slept on the rollaway in my, my old converted bedroom that my mom had turned into her sewing room and, uh Wow. And, uh, that's what I did until I got out of debt. And, um, then it was time to figure out the next steps. And, uh, I was going to be a cop. Really? Yep. Okay. I thought that was my calling in life. It was a great community way to serve and take care of people. Um, I'm a little bit bigger of a guy, so I thought, you know, that's great. You know, of course, a little more intimidating for 22 years old, of course. I'm bulletproof and, uh, I can do no wrong, so I'll be a cop. And, uh, I decided, you know, I can go down to one job, um, go to front range. You got most of the debt paid off. Yep. I'm starting to feel, see my way clear of that. And, uh, and, um, it was, uh, you know, kind of, uh, those, those life moments, you know, I think I'd really found my calling and, uh, I, uh, I was. Trying, trying to choose between which job to keep and, uh, Yancey's came to me and said, we're going to take you to 575 an hour and, uh, I was like, okay, it looks like I'm working overnights. You know, they're the high payers, you know, getting five bucks an hour at the mood house. So I went and turned my notice into the mood house and, uh, Scott McCarthy said, no, no, no, no, no, we can't do that. You're not clean. Do you really want to work overnight? I was like, yeah, so I'll match it. And you've got to have a little bit of responsibility. It's time for you to get a little bit of responsibility here. So, so if you're going to match it, I can take afternoon classes. Perfect. All right. That's what I'll do. I might take afternoon and evening classes. Found out I'm still a terrible student. So that didn't last very long. And then, you know, uh, It, it came to a point where, you know, I was like, Like you had to get a certain certificate amount or associates or something to be a cop. I wanted to get a little bit of a, you know, an education so they would take me seriously. Oh, I see. Cause it's very, fairly competitive. If I could get a two year, you know, yeah, and a little bit of a criminal justice, you know, something like that. And see where I can go, you know. Yeah. Don't want to just be. A guy, you know, you want to be the guy. We'll see what I could do. And, uh, but they didn't like your D's and yeah, school was not, I was just not, uh, you know. That just never really was my thing. Even in high school and stuff? I thought you said you were like in student council and was, I was, student council didn't mean I had to be an A student. I wasn't, I was, I was, I was that guy. You know, typically didn't have to crack a book and I could muddle through with B's. Right. C's and B's and I could muddle through, but you know, I had to work. You know, I wanted to go make money. I wasn't good. I didn't have time for homework. You know, I could pencil that out in the morning, you know. Between classes, you know, and then even when you went back to front range, you're pretty busy. I mean, you still got a full time job taking some afternoon classes. Study time is hard. I'd never learned, you know, I'd never learned how to study and how to buckle down to that. I knew how to work, but I didn't know how to work, but I didn't know how to Learn how to learn. Learn how to just learn. I didn't know, I didn't know how to do that. Learn by doing more. Exactly, and that's, I think that, that's where the majority of my education came from, is watching people do things wrong, and then saying, I'm never going to do it like that. Right. And, uh, and just by doing it and failing and going, That hurt. Don't do it like that. I say, uh, at Loco Think Tank when I'm telling people about it, sometimes I say it's, it's nice to learn from other people's mistakes once in a while. It's great. Instead of just your own. Yeah, those are a lot less expensive. They are a lot less expensive. Sometimes a 20 minute story save you from two years of paying back that debt. Whatever. Yeah. That would have been nice. So, yeah. And I think my timing was good at. Uh, at Hot Corner for a lot of reasons for me to walk through their door. And, uh, So was it just Scott and Steve at that time and they were kind of the managers and you were, became kind of the first other manager? I didn't really know Steve very well. Okay. Steve was kind of always doing something else. Scott was my, he was my general manager. Okay. You know, for all intents and purposes. I met I was a general manager. When Scott and Steve were together, I met them both way back in the, my early days in Fort Collins, but just like once or something. And then I knew about the, yeah, yeah. Like they split some years and it was probably 2010, 15. Yeah, probably about that. Somewhere in there. I've been close to 10 years now. Yeah. And he, uh, Scott, um, again, I can't say enough about Scott. Scott's been a great friend. We probably talk. At least almost once a week really still so great great guy We still we still do a little football pool and golf together. Yeah, stay connected I was just at his son's wedding. I remember when he was born, right? So it's a you know, it's a very really super special very special when you work in the restaurant It's gonna be sometimes too close. Yeah. Yeah Scott move me up One day I, Steve came, comes in and, you know, we're having some problems out at this time, we had the management contract for the Sundance Steakhouse. Oh, right. And they said, man, we need somebody to go in there and work that kitchen. You've done a lot of that. Why don't you go out there and manage that kitchen? So I got seven bucks an hour to go be the uh, kitchen manager for Sundance. So, that was fun, you know, I was like, here, I can show you guys how to cut steaks, and, you know, we can bake some bread, and, you know, we can have some fun with it, and, um, it was, you know, again, a great team of people to work with. Some of them are still my friends to this day. Was this in the 25 cent ladies night at Sundance? I think there was some of that going on. College night! going on. This was, this was early 90s. My first couple of years here, there was some mayhem going on around there. There was some mayhem, um, and, uh, which we'll leave. But also really good steaks. Great steaks, you know, and at the time it was, it was really, it was one of those sneaky little places that if you didn't know about it, you didn't know about it. Yeah, yeah, for sure. It was just, uh, but we were doing some good food and we were having a lot of fun and, but it was a bar, you know, it was a rowdy. Right. Cowboy bar. Yeah, they had a mechanical bull. Yeah, oh yeah. In the room. Oh yeah, it was. It was a honky tonk, basically. Yeah, it was, it was. And it was a big place, and you got to see a little bit of everything there. It was a fun place. Like I said, still have a lot of friends that, uh, that I, that'll be lifelong friends that I, I met while working there. Yeah, yeah. And, uh, and, you know, again, it was pretty ag central, so I knew a lot of people. Yeah, you fit right in culturally. I fit right in. And, uh, so that, that worked out good. And, um. It was, you know, it was a, it was a great spot. So was it just Mood House and Sundance? Just Mood House and Sundance at that time. Um, and, uh, you know, things went really well and things happened really fast. You know, we got food costs fixed. We got the place cleaned up, good health inspections, you know, and all of a sudden, six months in, Hey, we have another. Worked yourself out of a job. Worked myself out of a job. We have something else for you. Uh, we're going to open up a sports bar, an Irish themed sports bar over in Campus West. Oh. And, uh, it ultimately was Sullivan's, which is now Mojo's. Yeah, yeah. So I used to go to Sullivan's. I never go to Mojo's. Yeah. Sullivan's is a fun place. It was. After softball, we went to Sullivan's. Uh, I was in a co ed bank softball team. I saw a lot of those folks. Yeah, pretty much everybody that was over at Lee Martinez came over to Sullivan's afterwards. Came right over. So that was, so I took that and uh, so that was my first, you know, like, real, Real full GM. I guess I could really show them what I was. What I could do. Yeah. And, uh, but I, I went over there under the auspice of being a, you know, their kitchen manager. Well, we had the kitchen figured out in all of about three weeks and we hadn't even opened, but we were hired and ready to go. And you know, we're like, we're just waiting on, let's just open the door and see what we can do. And they pulled me aside and said, all right, Hey, listen, the front of the house is a mess. Listen buddy, uh, why don't you just run the whole show and what, why would either one of them, two small families at home, young family. Do either one of them really want to be locked into running a college sports bar at all? And neither one of their wives wants their husbands out there. No, no. Kind of thing. So it was, uh, it was pretty easy before we even got the doors open. They, you know, promoted me up, made me the general manager, uh, of the place. We had, uh, you know, The first couple of months were scary and, uh, you know, I took it very personally. It was kind of a slow start, a little bit of a slow burn. I would sit, I would sit at the bar. There'd be nobody in there. It was for the day bartender, one cook and me. I would go through the old white pages. And see if I recognized any names. If I thought I recognized your name in the white pages, I was calling that phone number going, Hey, I'm, I don't know. I got this bar over here in campus West. You should come see me. I could use some help. That's pretty affordable advertising. It was. Yeah, I don't know if it worked, but it was something for me. I killed some time. Uh, and then I looked busy. Yeah, that's rough. So yeah, we got, and then it was just. Well, these guys aren't terribly well heeled yet at that time, right? So, Sullivan's losing five grand a month or something like that. I felt very responsible for them, for their families, to my team. All these people that I hired and made them all these promises. And we just, what we... We just kept going down the path. You know, we didn't try to do other things. We knew what we were. We stayed in our lane. We kept doing it, kept doing it. And all of a sudden it just hit. People kept learning, learning. It just hit and then it took off and it was when it did. Holy cow. Oh yeah. That place was pretty busy too. Uh, it wasn't quite the mayhem maybe of the Sundance mid to late nineties, but it was some days it was, uh, but we got going, we got going big and, uh, Um, and then I started to, you know, all right, now I'm dating my future wife. Okay. And so she's leaving work. And this is like early 2000s? This is, this is early 90s, like 95, 96. Okay, still mid 90s. So mid 90s. And so she, uh, she, Would come over and she'd leave her job. She was working at the moot house. She closed the bar there at 10 and then she'd come over, sit in my office just so she could see me. Cause I worked seven days a week. Right. I was, I was not going to let that place fail. I was there every day as much as I could be there. Um, just going to will it to success. And uh, so you're like. And you got no ownership, no promises, really just a job. It was just like, here's your job. Yeah, and you're like, I'll be damned if I'm going to let this place fail. Yeah, I'm not going to let this fail. My name's attached, no way. You're like a dream employee. If I had a job that you could do, I would totally hire you for it right now. It was, it was, it was really fun. I had great, again, now, again, there, I've got. All these kids that are, you know, I've hired made promises to, and now they're still my friends and, uh, and we'll see each other, you know, on little reunions and stuff like that. And, uh, it's, it's, they're wonderful, wonderful people. So fun to see what they've done with their lives. Grinding through something hard with people will really, I've been, I've run the wild west relay a few times. It's a running race and like. They're like, you're pretty much my friend forever if I've been on a Wild West Relay team with you. Absolutely. And it's not that much different like grinding out a business, you know. Me and Alma have been working on Loco Think Tank for almost three years together now. You know, even if she left me next year. I'm going to know her forever, unless she tells me to leave her alone. That's enough. Anyway, yeah. I need a little break. But, but I mean, it's very galvanizing to any relationship, I think. Absolutely. I, I think that those, the memories that we have and the, and the things that they tell, you know, stories about, you know, me and being their manager, you know, you know, I'm a pretty young guy, you know. Yeah, yeah. You should have been chasing your wife out of your office and put her at the bar at least. Yeah, yeah, that's a lesson, you've never met my wife. She's a very attractive woman. You stay in the office, you shut the door. So, so you make it work. So we made it work. So we made it work. So we made, uh, you know. Kept the, kept the relationship working, uh, and the, and the bar worked really well. And, uh, now it's, you know, it's busy, it's going well, everybody's making money and my bartenders are all making, oh, shoot, Kurt, what are those guys making then? They're probably all making 40, 000, 50, 000 a year over the bar. Right. When, when I was working at the bank for 22, 000 or 26, 000. And I was making... About 34 and, uh, and I'm like, okay, that's the hard part about being a manager in those settings. Yeah, you gotta, you gotta play the long name and you can't let people, you know, those instances. And it got hard because, you know, there were things that I was giving up. I couldn't, I couldn't go out of town. I couldn't buy a house. I couldn't, I couldn't, you know, I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't because I was, I wasn't making enough money. And, uh, I can remember, uh, I'd gotten. I wasn't making very much and I was trying to live a life, you know, I was trying to try to have your debt paid out for me for, but you were still a little bit eager, still had nothing, you know, and I can remember there was a time where I got some, I got behind on my car payments on my car and so I was hiding my car in other parking lots and then walking into work and I was like, I don't know, I was like parking it, you know, walking, I don't know if my car is going to be there when I get home. Yeah. And I'm like, but, and all these kids are making, 45, 50, 000 over the bar. And I'm like, you know, maybe it's maybe, you know, I've done a good job here. I can, I can leave this job now and feel good about what I've done. And so I, I pursued a job selling food. I was like, okay, you know, I know how to do food. Like working for your aunties or something. Cisco, okay. And, uh, I was like, I know how to do this. You know, I'm a lot of times, you know, I was asking questions. I knew the answer to people like me more than they like a lot of people too. And I'm a good communicator. You're learning this about yourself is what I'm guessing at this time. And those guys are, they're telling me what they're making and they're making them six figures, right? And they're all going, what are you doing Bozo? You should be doing this job. My job is way easier than your job. And I make three times as much. Exactly. That makes me smarter than you. Exactly. And that is very, that's exactly where my head was. And, uh, I was like, there's, I had, uh, again, a friend that I worked with at the hotel. His dad was a salesman. For Cisco out on the Eastern Plains of Colorado. No, that's where I grew up. And, uh, he, uh, he and I bumped into each other. He said, you know, at some point I'm going to have to retire. You sure would look good in this territory. And he was telling me what he was making and how his lifestyle was, you know, I got a house in Estes park. I. Drive out to Eastern Colorado three days a week. I stay in Sterling. I sell some food. I go home. I live in my beautiful house and I'm like, Oh, what am I doing? You know, what am I doing to myself here? So I, I gave notice and I can never, I'll never forget this. Uh, uh, I went, I had. Finally worked up the gumption. I worked my shift all day. I went to the moothouse because I knew Scott was there. Scott was closing that night. Uh, I tracked Scott down into the liquor storage room. Uh, and, uh, he was handing me bottles of, uh, Blue Nun down for me to, uh, to, uh, so he could stock the bar. And I said, Scott, I need to give you my notice. And he said, Oh, that's terrible. I understand, but that's terrible. You know, you're, you'll be missed. Yeah. Great. Right on. Pretty easy. So, I feel pretty good about my decision and everything's good. I didn't get the same reaction from Steve. Steve was not happy about this. Um, I didn't know that they were working on another project, which was going to be the Austin's location downtown. So they had kind of, you know, they had penciled me in to another move. And I told them that I wasn't super happy mending a college bar. Well, they should have paid you more. It was pretty... Pretty rough, you know, at 24, 25, 26, 000 a year, you're not really, you're not really, and working six, seven days a week, not taking vacations, all that stuff. Like, my job in my, my first banking job was about, about that when I moved to Fort Collins, I think it was 26, 000 in the late nineties. But my job was way easier, I had an expense account, and an assistant virtually, and like, I was at, Sullivan's, and the trailhead, and the moothouse, and stuff like that. Also writing up my credit cards, because 26 grand a year wasn't cutting it in Fort Collins, with even just a basic apartment and a roommate. Yeah, no, my rent was 300 bucks a month, and that had to be paid. I could hide the car. Had to sleep. So, it was, you know, it's what it was. So Steve, uh, So Steve contacted me and said, It was, uh, um, I think the first call was to Cisco and said, If you hire him, we'll be doing business. Oh, no shit. And the next call was to me saying, You and I need to have a conversation. So said, yeah, so, uh, so we kind of, um, went through, he's one of the, he's like the, the game of war games or war strategy. What is that kind of like, I don't know, but he was good at it. Right? Like, and said, you know, all right, let's, uh, let's, let's, let's retalk about this. So, uh, you know, I'll pay, uh, 32, 000, um, a year and you go back to the moothouse and you take over the moothouse because Scott and I are going to go open up this new concept we've got and it's going to be Austin's, which is, you know, basically Maine and Maine, you know, and, uh, Oh yeah, probably a big rent check, uh, even already back then, even though old town was absolutely old time. Wasn't what it was. Wasn't. I mean, it was because I got here in 99 and it was starting to get pretty sexy. Yeah. People could tell it's coming. It's coming. Uh, and you know, the houses had turned from being kind of nobody wants to live there to everybody wants to, and the buildings have become kind of changed from nobody wants to, you know, in the late eighties it was where businesses went to die. Yeah. There was all brown paper on a lot of those rooms. And, uh, not anymore, boy. Totally. It is, it, and... So they saw that trend coming. They saw it coming, and I think that, you know, they were, they had, uh... So 32... I guess your other alternative was, well, I was getting a shot, getting that job, what I would have done, maybe I could have done that. Um, where were you all those years ago? A relationship there. Anyway, I'm that guy. So I'm the 30, 000 foot guy. You're the right in front of me guy. A little bit. I don't know how to quit a job. How do I do this? Yeah. Okay. I already quit, but you just hired me right back. So, uh, I guess that's what I do. So, um. I, uh, I went back to the Mood House and, uh, again, your now wife there. She had already left. Okay. So she had moved on to other things. She had moved on into retail and, uh, and was doing very well. And she was getting promoted and getting opportunity. And, uh, and we were, you know, starting to think about, you know, buying a home and trying to figure out that process. Uh, and I, you know, she was out earning me substantially, which is humbling. And, uh, and, uh, and she, she was worth every penny. She's. She's, she's amazing. Really good at her work and life. Anything she touches is, is just gold. She's one of those, one of those folks that, it all works out. She should be really glad that she touched you. I am. I am very fortunate. And, uh, so I, I went back to the Moothouse again. Great run. You know, long story short, you know, it was, uh, uh, a lot of fun. We, I, I was blessed to hire some amazing people and we, you know, we were here, we are, and you know, restaurants getting, we had, uh, and we're growing. We had a bank meetings at the moon house, like our Christmas parties and stuff would be there a lot of times when in those years, like the late nineties, early two thousands. Yup. The crab legs and the filet that you guys would do. Oh, it was, it was crazy. So good lamb. I still think about the salad bar gives me nightmares, never clean enough. There's no such thing. So, yeah, so we, uh, so we went there and, uh, and, and it was, uh, it was. Awesome. You know, I was very proud of the restaurant and what we were accomplishing growing and, you know, clean restaurant, great reputation in town, you know, had a, you know, had great relationships, uh, all over town. And so it felt really good. And I was, I was finally like, I was on, you know, a plane. Austin's was kind of brand new when I moved to town. Yeah. It seemed like it was already the anchor of the downtown. Business lunch community. It really became that, you know, pretty quickly. Yeah. And, um. So I was, you know, I, I guess you're always looking at, you know, geez, Austin's, you know, sexy and new and different here. I am at the mood house. And so it started to happen again. You know, maybe it's time for me to, you know, now I've been there, you know. going on close to 10 years and they raised your salary from 32, 000 to 33, 500. I think I was 36 and uh, you know, and I was, and I thought, okay, you know, they're growing. I don't, there's no room for me, you know, I'm not going to, I don't fit into this equation. So I, uh, I started, you know, looking for another job and what could, you know, what could potentially happen for me? What would, you know, next career be for me? And um, they came to me and, you know, now my feelings were hurt. Uh, they opened up the second Austin's on harmony road. Um, just asked me for people and didn't ask for me. So I'm like, wow, here, I'm, you know, pretty long term guy. Um, and, uh, you know, you don't want me to be part of it. The old town or the August Harmony. I wanted the new one, you know, who doesn't want the new one? Right, right. Nope, we need you to, we need you to be here, Al. I'm like, eh, you know. I know what that looks like, you know, and that's, uh, I don't want to be the one. You're a fixer or builder a little bit. I like that part, you know, and, uh, and I'd been there for six, seven years, you know, now all of a sudden at the, at the moothouse and I was like, ah, that, that stung, you know, there's a blow to the ego and, you know, and have people come in and ask me, you know, I don't think I ever verbalized it like that. I guess I'm, I'm a person that I I'm not. I shouldn't have to say that, you know, I've, I've, I've let my body of work speak for itself. Well, and you're, you're kind of like me a little bit where you're kind of people first, I suspect. Yeah, absolutely. Where you have a strong intuition of what other people are thinking, what they might be feeling in a circumstance. And you. Sometimes we expect other people to have that same intuition, and they just don't. I guess that's fair. Yeah. I guess that's, you know, I would say I've learned. I don't know. I think I'm probably guilty of that. I would say. I know I've been. That would be a fault. I could, I could definitely own. Um, you know, I just, I expect more from people that I'm close to. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's probably why we're hardest on the people that we, for sure. If my wife listens to this one, which she won't, but, uh, I've definitely been guilty of that for sure. Yeah. Yeah. I want her to know exactly what I'm thinking. Yeah, exactly. Cause I know what she's thinking most of the time. Cause that's the way I'm wired. Yeah. A little bit. I think so. Yeah, exactly. So you're starting to get. So thinking about what's next, if this isn't going to be the right thing, feelings are hurt, you know, you're 15, 12 years in something like that by this time, whatever you've been helped them grow in the restaurant, you know, Sullivan's Sundance, et cetera, pretty good track track record of building and being successful. Uh, so it was about a year into, not even, it was a few months into that opening at, uh, at Austin's and the, and the general manager didn't like the volume, the vibe, it was, um, not really a good career fit for him. So he opted to step down. Um, they put a kind of a, an intro. Oh, step down. Just didn't want the obligation of it. Yeah, he, he left. He wanted to be a bartender for twice as much money. Yeah, exactly. Twice as much. So he left, uh, they put another guy, another young man in place and, uh, boy, that really stung here's a guy had never been a GM and he's going to run the place. And I'm like, well, all right, that's all I need to know. Right. You know, that's, that's what they think of me. So that didn't go real well. So then they came to me. So now I'm the third, third choice, uh, to go, to go run, run the place. And, uh, um, So I, I, you know, thought long and hard about it and, uh, it was, uh, you know, certainly something I wanted to prove to myself and to everybody else. You know, I have, uh, when people would tell me, you know, you're probably not going to be a first team, you know, County football player. Let's see if I can just change that. And, uh, you know, that, that always really motivated me. So, so we, uh, so I went to Austin's on harmony and I will tell anybody to this day, uh, my career through hot corner, that was the best job I ever held for them. It was absolutely the, the. Greatest job everything is a great restaurant. It's a great restaurant. It was all great, you know the design of it They they did a great job, you know thinking about it and putting it together It was just fun the food fit me It was I was able to really imprint a lot of my was there different food down there Nope, it was at the same time. It was the same menu as the one in Old Town. Yeah Um, it, it, everything just suited me, you know, it was the, the style of food, the style of service, the building, everything suited me. It was the greatest job I ever had. I had an unbelievable team. I was just, I was trying a little bit of everything, you know, as stylistically as a manager, you know, and everything was working well and, and Harmony Corridor is filling out with businesses and it's like, as sexy as Austin's old town has been for lunch. For business lunch Austin's harmony was even sexier for the season and we we that was by design You know, we put a lot of focus and time into making sure Dinners were not really that busy there. Yeah. My philosophy was I'm going to beat everybody's pants off for lunch. I'm going to deliver lunch fast with a great looking kid who knows what they're talking about. And you're, I'm going to, serve you fast. These business people that are spending their company's expense account. For lunch are going to actually spend their family's income for dinner on a regular basis. And that was, that was solely 100 percent my mission walking in there. I'm like, I'm going to, I know I can beat anybody at lunch. You know, that was, that was the game. So it went after that and it went great. Well, and you crushed it. Crushed it. Crushed it. For sure. Sales grew like crazy. Costs were amazing. Um. That's funny. I didn't realize because it. I mean, it did launch as kind of a dud, because I was working on the bank when Austin's Harmony opened over at Community First, or Capital West National Bank over there, and it wasn't that great, and then I imagine a few months after you arrived is when it became kind of Boy, it was fun. It was fun. It was, it was a blast. And again, have this amazing team. They're building that big building over there. Everett real estate moves over and stuff and the group and what not, right? It was just one thing after another. And, uh, you know, they all became friends and believers and supporters and, um, you know, everything we touched just. It just worked, you know, and that was, I was, by then I'm, you know, writing recipes, writing the menus, you know, rewriting training, writing how to train managers. I'm training all the managers. I'm, you know, hiring all the managers. I'm, you know, I've really, you know, I really in my sweet spot, you know, and it's just going great. And it's 10 minutes from my house. You know, it was a great, it was an unbelievable fun job. And, uh, Then everything changed. Um, I, uh, I was approached by Steve to, uh, uh, to take on another project and, uh, for the first time I was like, I don't, I don't think I want that one. I don't, I don't want it. I'm having too much fun here. Yeah. It's really suiting me. I'm getting a little older now. Right. You know, I don't really need another project. Project, you know, I don't, I don't need to prove myself now. Yeah. Right. I'm four for four. Pretty good. I, I don't really need that one. And, uh, I said, you should ask all the other guys first. And it was to do the food service in water Valley. Oh, right. Yeah. The homestead. Yeah. We did the homestead out there. Yeah. And, uh, I really didn't, you know, It was further drive and I mean, it's a golf course and, you know, there's things, there was aspects of it that were very interesting to me because it was a big beast, you know, it was doing banquet service, golf carts, pool service. I had, oh, I had no idea how big of a beast it was. Super complex. Yeah. Um, and, uh, And of course, Martin's like, Well, just do this. Yeah. Cause he's that kind of guy. He literally has the Midas touch on everything. Right. Uh, it's, it's just that easy. I want to just do it. And I'm, oh yeah, okay. Um, and so I, uh, It's all these things cost money that you want me to do. Yeah. I got a, I got a call. I had taken a week off. I got a call on Wednesday that said, uh, you're not going back to the Austin Sun Harmony. Um, you are now the general manager at. The homestead in Windsor. So, was Steve the sole owner by this time? No, he was still, he was still with Scott, Steve. Okay. And, uh, and so I don't know. Sounds like Scott, Steve was the bad cop, and Scott was the good cop in your, uh, story a little bit. Yeah, well maybe, yeah, probably, probably, probably so, and in some ways, yeah. Um, and, uh, so I, I, I'll never forget. I was just devastated. You know, I was excited for a new challenge and all those things, but I never, you know, you don't get to say goodbye to your friends and this team that you had built and that had gone to war with you. And I believe I didn't even get to say goodbye to him. I literally came back into town and drove to the, uh, Uh, the homestead for my, my first day. Wow. So that was, that was hard. That was, that was difficult. And you know, I went solo. I didn't bring over any trainers. I, they, they were full of stuff. It was a turnkey operation. So I, I just got to fix it. I just got to go in and fix terribly broken. Yeah, it was, it was crazy. I mean, I, I, I fired six kids. On my, one of my first weekend for all smoking weeded in the pool shed, uh, So I'm like, oh, great. Now pool shed's right there. Yeah, we invited that opportunity, you know, uh, So it was, uh, that was, uh, an education and really stretched my, my limits, you know, uh, for how to manage. Such a multi faceted thing and then, you know, try to kind of manage the relationships with members with a club owner. Because they think they have special privileges and the owners are different level. Yep, so. I've got a boss, and then I've got the guy that owns the club and owns everything. Right. So he's my boss, he's my boss. And any friend of Martin's is your boss. Is your boss, and uh, and they would tell you that. No offense, Martin, if you're listening. No, not at all. Not at all. And I met great people. I can just imagine how that works. Oh, yeah. Inherently it does. When you're, when you, when you, when you think you know the man. Right. You become the man. Well, somebody wrote on Twitter the other day, which is the only place you could ever read something like this, but, uh, even Hitler had a boss. Uh, somebody wrote, and I was like, you know, fuckin probably. Probably so. For sure. I'm not sure you listen to his boss. Right. We don't, yeah. Um, but anyway, I digress, but, like, there's definitely an interesting, uh, You know, this, we'll, we'll flash forward to the, the politics segment of this, but like there's, there's power and there's using power, right? Like there's, there's strength through attraction and magnetism and whatever, and there's Strength through actual power like you will go away if you don't do this thing and make it work absolutely and there's different types of Dynamics, I prefer the the softer gentler power But yeah, it's it that was It, it pushed me. Yeah. It, it was, it was a, that was hard. I, I go from having the job I, I cherish the most in my adult Yeah. Life to the job. I, I hated the most. Yeah. You was pressure from Steve Fresh, the club. Oh, it constantly, you know, I, whatever I, I, I had, uh, one day off, one summer, uh, from um, March 1st till. It was about October 1st. Oh my. I had one day off. Fuck that. And that day. Excuse my French. Oh no, you're right. Uh, that day, I probably received 15 phone calls. What? One of which from Martin telling me about how crappy his lunch was for the day. Yeah, thanks. And I'm like, I only. It's a Tuesday, it's rainy outside, there's no golf. How can we screw up this? Right. Plus everybody knows who the fuck Martin is. Make his the best one every time. Don't screw that one up. Right. So, yeah, so, so it was, uh, it was hard. I mean, it was, you know. All of those. And then, you know, we're, we're doing this catering. And so, so again, you know, if you're going to do it, you, you better do it, you know, you better own it and you better do it. So I approached it with, if it, you know, like I did every other job, I own this, you know, Scott and Steve own it, but I own it. You know, I, it's me, it's my responsibility. It's my deal. And, um, So again, we, you know, sales were great, sales grew, uh, very, very profitable place. Um, you know, summer months really carry for any mistakes you're making over the winter. Uh, there was long days of, Big spenders. Sure. All summer long. It was, yeah, it was great. You're selling cans of beer and right. I mean, it was, it was right. That's the easiest thing ever. Like here. Exactly. 5 here. 5 here. 5. Don't take a whole lot of brain work, you know? Right. So we would, we would. Just, just shotgun blast through the place. And I, you know, there were days when I would be coming into work and my closing manager was walking out. So we were doing these shift changes at 4 30 in the morning with each other. Uh, and it was, you know, all the crazy stories that I have, you know, the raccoons stealing the trash and port a potties on fire. And I mean, it was all of my crazy stories, the Cisco truck that backed into the pool during a remodel. A lot of them go back to the homestead. They're almost exclusively our story. And, uh, at least the business stories, the personal stories. There's probably some hidden back there in the credit cards. Lots of good ones there. So it was, it was. Uh, not my most enjoyable time. It was, it was fine. And I, I told Steve, I would do it for two years. I said, I'll do it for two years. And about two and a half, getting close to three years into it. I was like, I'm no, I'm my. My integrity was starting to be compromised. I felt my brand in Austins that I'd worked so hard to build for the previous two years was being a little bit sullied because we couldn't really be in Austins out there because you're doing too many other things. So it was, so I didn't really like that dynamic. Um, and, and I was, you know, I was, I was being asked to do things that I was really, it just really didn't fit my, my deal. You know, running a club wasn't really the guy I wanted to be. It just didn't fit me. You know, I'm a, I'm more of a t shirt jeans guy, you know? Yeah. Yeah. That's me. Yeah. And, uh, so I was like, you know, I, so I sat down with Steve and for the first time I said, Hey, I can't do this anymore. You know, I told you two years, it's been two and a half. I'm out. And, uh, I don't know how you want to play this, what you want to do. Uh, so he said, give me a week. I'll figure it out. Came back and said, you know what? I'm gonna, I'm gonna have you run. The, the restaurant operation for me. So the whole thing. Yep. So I started, so I started with just the Austins and then over time I grew into, we opened up Big Als and then, uh, Scott retired and I inherited Moot House and Nios at the time. Oh yeah. nios. Yeah, nios. The fig salad at EOS was Jill's favorite for years. And then it went away and we've been sad, mostly. It affected our relationship. I'm sorry, I'm sorry about that. I have the recipe. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. So, yeah, so I, uh, so that's, that started the next, you know, and I didn't realize probably how much. Being in the position that I'd been in for the previous two and a half years where you're, you know, managing all that multitude of chaos and working on those personal relationships with so many people and trying to keep everybody happy, how much that had prepared me to be a multi unit restaurant manager. And so, so that's where I kind of ended my career was multi unit running all the locations, director of operations, basically for the whole thing, restaurant entity, you know, so it was, it was a blast, you know, I got to see, um, got to come back to work with a lot of these managers. So how's that look like then? Now you're mostly just managing all those managers, managing managers, but also digging into the weeds a little bit. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Stuff that I really. Love to do diving into the numbers. What, when you move this needle, what, what is the net result? You know, why, when I make all these changes, I should see this projected 2 percent increase in food costs and nothing changes. You know, why, why is that? What is really happening? And, uh, along the way, we hired one of my, um, all time favorite people, chef Blackwell. I, um, he, you know, he came to us and, uh, couldn't, you know. I was blessed to have him with us and, uh, you know, to work with. So does he like serve with all the, all the restaurants kind of helps their menus be right. He was doing all that. He's now moved on. Um, and, uh, and, and I'm excited to watch his career, uh, take off and what he can do, but it was, you know, it was fun to have those relationships. And you do that for maybe five years or something? God, they do that for him. Can we kind of re pick up the story again or more than that? I'm probably 18. Oh, as the director of operations for the whole thing? Yeah, 16, 18 series. Wow, so you went through opening comic, Chicken, and Big Al's was... Named after you is what I heard named after me. Yeah. Yeah, so you were like I would have rather had a 5, 000 rate That would have been perfect Ownership, you know anything and it was that part of I sensed that a little bit like you wanted to be an Owner sooner of, yeah. Yeah. I thought, you know, organization, he, when Scott left, you know, um, and I took over his, uh, his responsibilities. I thought that was really, you know, finally, um, the door is open for me to, to, to earn, um, some ownership and, uh, into these, these, and did you say that at the time or? You know, I, I, I brought a checkbook, um, a couple of times, um, and, uh, so I made it, I made it pretty well known that I, you know, I'd like to learn a little bit more. I knew, I know how to run restaurants, you know, I had, I know how to build a relationship with somebody and, um, and I know how to, you know, do those, those things that, um, that. What I'm good at, what I don't know how to do and what I never learned was the, you know, that deeper dive into the cash flows and stuff like that. And so I was aching to learn more of those types of things. How do you get paid? You know, what is, how do you pay for an investment like this and still make money and how does that work? You know, and those are the things that I never, and you didn't really get behind the scenes. Never behind the scenes. No, it was, it was always held pretty close to the vest and uh, Um, you know, it was like, you'll, you'll learn that when the time is right. And, uh, um, you know, I did, uh, fortunately for me, I'm doing it on my own and, and, uh, with, with, uh, with silver grill, but that was a hard lesson. You know, I didn't know some of those things, you know, I didn't know, you know, I, I went a long time. Um, without, uh, knowing how to pay myself full comprehensive view. I'm like somebody else writes a check and they give it to me and they pat me on the head and say, good job, bad job. Right. Right. You know, and I, you know, it's a different thing becoming an owner, right? It's a, it's a whole different perspective on things, you know? And, uh, you know, I, I ran those restaurants. I'm very proud to say that I ran those restaurants. Like I owned them and, uh, and I don't regret that. And you know. With your eyes and your ears and the reviews left online, whether you're doing a good job or bad job, absolutely. And by, you know, turnover and, you know, do your staff look at you and engage you right away when you're walking in the back door? Yeah. So I knew we were making money. I didn't know how much money we were making, you know, and I didn't understand, you know, that cash flow piece of the cash is always coming in. It's always going out, you know, it's just, it's just this endless waves of in and out of money. And I didn't, I didn't really understand that. So I'm saying, I would say I'm still learning that two years in, I'm still, you know, 20 years in sometimes people are still learning that a little bit because it changes business changes so much and Yeah, I we could talk endlessly about how much the food and beverage industry has been changed in the last Oh my gosh, five ten years I was so I just talked with my friend Sean Nook from Black Bottle Brewery Uh, which was the last startup that I financed when I was in my banking career. And they're, they're, they're closing. Uh, Verboten is taking over, having a second location. Uh, so Sean sold all of his equipment and, you know, basically nothing for the brand even though he... Made that corner into a successful corner, you know, El Monte sucked for years before Black Bottle made it a good corner. And then they lost it, kinda. You know, COVID kinda killed them. They lost the neighborhood pub, kinda busy, kinda place, and it just never came back. It's funny how certain places took the hit so much harder than others. And you know, were there, were there cracks we didn't notice before, you know, and we, or we overlooked and you know, it was just, I mean, it was, we, my wife and I used to go to black bottle every Wednesday night for half price growler night, not every Wednesday night, 30 a year. And we would go out to dinner, get a growler, you know, and, uh, like we were a mainstay and now, you know, the last couple of years, if we go on Wednesday night, it's like, well, there's 14 people here, you know, and they haven't done much different, but anyway, I digress, but it's, it's just been really interesting to me how much shift has been in the winners and losers in the space of restaurant touring and, and bars, you know, I actually got acquainted with Tim at stakeout not too long ago. And we were talking about, you know, how he was like, everybody just goes home at midnight now and smokes weed and plays video games or something. And then Nook, I was telling him kind of this story, the dynamic, and he's like, well, yeah, and Tinder. Like, you don't have to go to the trailhead of the stakeout to look for girls anymore. You just swipe left or swipe right. And legal weed and Tinder, yeah, legal weed and Tinder have disrupted the bar industry terribly. Never thought about it. Yeah. Never thought about that. That is a funny. That's a social study that needs to happen. I'm pretty sure it's accurate. Um, I'm going to call a short break and we're going to come back into this conversation in a couple. Awesome. Thank you. All right. Okay. We're back. And when we left, um, we were kind of wrapping that full circle basically on your career journey. You spent, um, a good amount of time just kind of making sure all of the hot corner restaurants worked right. Yeah, it was, it was, you know, going into COVID, I would, I don't, I would say it was. Interesting, again, I started reading about this coronavirus in China and, uh, started thinking about what would that look like if it came here. And, um, I started having a conversation with my chef to say, This might, this might be a real thing. And this was probably October, November before the shutdown. Oh, so you were getting into it. We were way ahead of this. Yeah. You were getting onto the online forums or something that wasn't public information yet. It was, I was way ahead of this. Interesting. And it was, it was, it was, it was super interesting to, to think about. Like January was the first I heard of it. It was. It was for most people. I, I contacted Cisco food service and said, what is your pandemic protocol? And they said, what are you talking about? Right. I said, I need to see your pandemic protocol because I need to write one for me. And so my district manager for, for, for Cisco said, I don't even know what that is, but I'll see what I can find out later that afternoon. He sent me their pandemic protocol. So we started thinking about what can we do? And in their protocols was, you know, like kind of shrink down, get to the basics. So we started writing menus. What would it look like if, uh, you know, if we could only run with, Half the number of people, because everybody's sick, you know, and, uh, what would that look like? And, uh, so we wrote, uh, you know, kind of a plan a and then like, okay, let's say, you know, we can't get a lot of these foods. What can we write for a menu that would look even more assisting still provide, you know, Enough to keep people interested, but shrink it down. So we got to about plan D on some, some planning, what it could look like for scheduling hours of operation. And is Steve thinking that you're like spending a bunch of time screwing around? I think so. He's like, you are just in the weeds, buddy. Um, but it was, it was, it was a real thing. You know, you're watching entire cities are shut down, you know, and they're, you know, they're not allowed to leave their homes. Well, our world's not that big, it's pretty small anymore. You can travel anywhere. And, uh, you know, so it was, uh, it was kind of becoming, you know, interesting. And, and sure enough, when we went, we got to our, what I thought was going to be plan a, and then I went to plan Q that was fire everybody and try to hold on, try to keep this business alive. And it was, uh, um, you know, probably one of the worst days of my life. That was, uh, We did a, uh, webinar, like, probably March 20th or something, 20th, 30th maybe, uh, and I came on as kind of the former banker guy, and I was, before the PPP had been announced or anything, and I was like, you are stewards of your businesses here, and your job is to Like make sure your business survives to hire people back. So, uh, I don't care how much you love these people. You got to get rid of them if you don't have any work for them to do. And, uh, yeah, we did 300 people. Wow. Terrible. It was awful. I can only imagine. It was, it was awful. And, uh, you know, people that rely on you, count on you and, but they're all looking at you and they're feeling bad for you, you know, sorry. You're the one that has to tell me this. I'm sorry. This is what it is. And I didn't even begin to know what, what the next few months look like for us. Do you want to talk? Like more about that. I've had a few restaurant people on. I think it's all been said old news. Now it's kind of been the thing for me coming out of it. What we didn't realize was, you know, this mixed blessing of what we could do with that business here. We have a hard reset where, you know, make lemons out of your lemonade. Right. You know, and so here we have this hard reset. We were able to change out a point of sale system. We were able to. Add online ordering and see the, you know, this delivery thing, work its way into full service instead of just quick service at like big al's. Right. Um, we came out of that and I'll never forget it was towards, there was that summer kind of when mask restrictions had finally eased up. Right. Before they came back on, before they came back on and my phone goes off in the middle of the night. Typically I'm not somebody that wakes up when the phone goes off in the night. For whatever reason, the phone went off. I woke up, I rolled over, opened it. I am only on one place in social media, and that is X or Twitter. And there was a Twitter feed saying that the Rio Grande was on fire. Oh, I am like, you've got to be kidding me. It's like two 30 in the morning. So I. So somebody texted you this link or something? No, it just came up on my feed. Cause I'm on the, I'm on, that's where I get all alerts and stuff? Yeah, I get all the alerts for the, for police and fire and all that stuff. Interesting. Okay, I need to learn how to use my Twitter better. Yeah, I'm good at Twitter. And, uh, the uh, um, I was, I sat up in bed and my wife was like, what on earth are you doing? Yeah. And I said, I'm doing Twitter. Going to work because it's going to be a busy day, uh, Rio's on fire. So we came out of that here, where, you know, this doom and gloom tables are spaced and, you know, it's, it's just, you know, it's hard time, but masks are off, you know, it's summertime, it's beautiful outside. People are starting to come around. We, we had one of the. Greatest years in the history of the company. And, uh, I'm very proud to say that, you know, I was a big part of that. You know, we shepherd people through, there were days that I was waiting tables. There were days that I was bartending a lot of days when I washed dishes, um, you did whatever you could do to keep the staff there to serve all the demand that we had was fueling. Yep. We switched to a tip pool system. We were incredibly profitable during this time. Um, so I'm hearing, you know, my, you know, Other friends in the restaurant business are telling me, you know, their struggles and I have to kind of be the wallflower going. Yeah. There was a lot of profit guilt. Oh my gosh. My friend, Dave from recycled cycles. He was selling bikes. Hand over fist and he just like he knew like some of his fellow local think tank members were Struggling or closed by government action and he's like I've never made more money in my life Exactly, and that's a that's a guilty feeling. It was terrible. Yeah Yeah. And I'm, I'm telling everybody, I'm like, let me tell you every one of my secrets, right? I don't care if it works for you. Great. Take it. I don't care. Be successful. Yeah. And they all were in their own rights. And, but, but we had a, PPP came around and that helped a lot of people get through at least. And you know, I wish they never would have. Shut us down, but I guess at least they tapped everybody's money to keep everybody's business open. I don't know. I I regret that I'm gonna be 55 years old because I think that you know 20 years from now the history That's gonna be written about this time is gonna be truly fascinating, right? I really wish I was a little bit younger so I could watch that historical perspective. I think it would be fun. You know, it'll be different five years from now than it is 20 years from now. I'm pretty sure. Absolutely. Depending on who, by who's writing the control, who's writing the narrative on this thing, but for sure there's going to have to be some good, just scientific data that comes out about what happened during this time. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, I think it's going to be really. Fascinating and uh, I regret that I won't be able to see him. He'll probably be around at least to see it. Uh, you might not be operating a restaurant anymore by that time. I am looking forward to, uh, to my trips. What do you think, uh, you got? 10, 15, 20 more good years and you, how long are you going to be a caretaker for these brands? And how will you know when you've found your caretaker to follow you? You know, I mean, that's, that's, that's the first thing I started thinking about when I, when I bought the place, I had about one week to enjoy it. And then I'm like, how do I get out? What do I do? I mean, I don't know. How do you unwind this? Yeah. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm doing this to wind up my career and, uh, and to really have fun. Well, for you to build your legacy and your wealth. Yeah. And retirement. You know, you've built a lot of wealth, frankly, for, for Scott and Steve. Absolutely. I'm very proud of that. I made them very wealthy guys. I'm, I'm very proud of the work we did. And, uh, um, I'd like to do the same for myself. I don't think I have as long, I don't have 30 years to do it. Right, right. Um, so I got to do it fast. Well, you've got really strong engines behind you though. So, uh, as long as John isn't charging you too much rent over there. I have two of the best. So, uh, so, and we. Well, we'll see where it goes, but I think that's, you know, kind of the always, you know, uh, tickling the back of my brain is to go, you know, these, these restaurants cannot leave. Um, they are, they cannot go away and I, I, and they can't really be owned by somebody that's just a remote completely owner either. No, no, you know, you can have good managers, you can have a good job, a good lifestyle. John did for many years after a great manager, you know, a lot of people have, but. Okay. You can't just be, you're not going to be a bought by a hedge fund. Nope. You know, they'll wreck it real fast and then they'll both be closed. Exactly. And then that's not what I want to live with. No. You know, I, you know, I adopted my baby to a serial killer, you know, and they stopped my baby's head. What the hell is that? What the hell? So yeah, I think that that's the, the, you know, already working on what is that strategy? Your one big project over the next 10, 15 years, whatever, is to find that right next home. I think selfishly, you know, I would, I would like to see silver grow through to a hundred. Um, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's reasonable. If I find the right person, you know, and not to disparage anyone or any, my situation is my situation and it is what it is, but if I find the right person. And it's really the right person. If I exit in eight years, is that so bad? You know, why, why stick around? If you find the right person, they'd probably let you stick around for a couple of years. At least as a partial owner or something. You would think so. And I think, you know, I'm not gonna, I don't have a, I don't have a pre designed anything. It has to be the right person. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's probably my biggest realization, um, with both of these places is, um, It's an incredible responsibility to have, you know, those, those places and have to take care of them because they are so entrenched in the community, 100 percent people that are so, you know, I only, I bring everybody that I know here and I can't thank him enough. Well, I'll just say. for everybody's sake that's listening. Um, we're glad they're in such good hands. Oh, thank you. Yeah. I'm, I'm glad I get to be the one that shepherds them through till we find the next Johnny A to take them. I'm going to call a real short break and we're gonna come back with our faith family politics. Love it. So, uh, faith family politics, uh, as, as an ex user and subscriber, I suspect that you have the same appreciation for free speech. As I do, uh, and that's kind of why we have a Faith, Family, Politics segment, honestly. Bless you. Shouldn't, shouldn't be topics that we can't talk about. Exactly. I think that's baloney. We don't understand each other if we get in silos built by these social media machines. Exactly. And, and I hope there's still a lot of crazy ass leftists on X, even though it's not Twitter anymore and the rules are different. Right? And I know there are, because I see them. Oh, absolutely. And I like them there. You know, it's, since when can't you just not have a conversation with somebody and, uh, and agree to disagree on certain things and, you know, the loser has to be the one that gets shouted down and, um, accused of being every negative thing in the book. Right, right. Just because you have a different opinion doesn't mean you're racist or bigot, or, or what, or homophobic or anything. It just means you have a different opinion on how, how things operate and you have a different view on, on life. And, uh, um, that doesn't mean it's right or wrong. It just means it's different. Yeah. And, uh, it's a shame that those conversations get lost. Well, we need a framework for both, both and everybody. to feel comfortable with. You know, that's the rule of law. That's the promise of America. That's the, the unity of states that have a small federal government. Absolutely. In my opinion. Absolutely. I think that that was, that was the design. And, uh, you know, here we are on election day and, uh, and, you know, um, It is election day. Yeah. And what a great day to talk about this. We're banding about, you know, uh, the, the, the exact, exact thing you're talking about here. We have this proposition HH that is just a veiled. Tax increase for sure that but it's it's packaged. So all the words in the wording is Oh God makes it just oh It's a slime of that. It's it's do all this administration. Unfortunately, I hate to say it but they're like they package like anything. That's positive Jewish man killed at Protest in Los Angeles was a headline on Saturday Yep. Or, no. Jewish man dies. Well, no. Palestinian protester went over and killed him. You know? And, like, I'm sorry, but... It's written... Right. The spin. The spin. And the spin on that proposition, HH. It'll be long past the election and they'll probably win. Cause I'm sure they spent more money and, and, and with the wordsmithing, like it's, it's 1984. Oh, it is. It's, it's, it's a shame that, you know, I think that there's a lot of brilliant people out there and, and, you know, I, I'm very, I, I probably find myself in the opposite camp. You know, I, I, I think our future is going to be amazing, but we're in a rough patch right now. Yeah. We're in, we're in a really. Interesting time in our world that, uh, it's, it's hard to see clear of sometimes. And it's frustrating and it makes people angry. And, uh, and you lose sight of what a great country we, we live in and we should have the ability to, to see clear of some of these things. Oh, why can't they just write a bill that says, Hey. If you pass this, this goes away, but we'll do this. It's, it's, it's akin to the uh, the other, I live in the county so I didn't get a whole lot to vote on. Right. So I had that and the uh, the cigarette money and the school district stuff. And I'm like, you know, wait a minute. Well, but we got, like on a national stage, we got so much politics going on right now with this kangaroo court. And, uh, not that I, like, I've never voted for Trump. I've not voted for Trump twice. And I recognize this as a kangaroo court that's set up to steal his voice and money, literally, like take his money in New York, in the state of New York. It is, it's crazy. It is a crazy, crazy world that we live in right now. And, uh, you know, since when do we question our FBI? Right? Wasn't that the epitome of excellence for many years? I think it started going downhill during Obama, and it's continued to go downhill rapidly since there, uh, with a steep decline since Biden. Oh my goodness. Well, and, and the FBI was, like, informed before, just right after Biden announced, of all of his Ukrainian funny business. Well, let's see where that goes. We'll see. It's gonna take a, yeah, it's gonna take a Republican administration. Then we gotta drag this all in and instead of doing the work that we need to be doing, which is, Hey, let's get to work on us. Right? Yeah. Let's, let's, let's be well, but. What we were do we actually like we shouldn't have to require a Republican administration to prosecute crime No, no, we obvious crime. We should like blackmail and bribery and stuff like that Like but it's you know When was the last time we had a government that we really looked up to that? We were like this is I believe in them. We're all united Ronald Reagan Ronald Reagan That's, that would be my guess. That was a long time ago. A long time ago. Yeah. I was just a little boy. Oh yeah. The stories of him, you know, having the leaders of the Democrat party over for steaks so they could talk about policy and practice and negotiate, break bread and negotiate and find that happy medium somewhere in between that everybody can live with and we can. And JFK before that. Just to put a Democrat in the conversation, honestly, like those are the two presidents of the last and, and before that, um, Eisenhower, like those are the three from the last hundred years that I actually, and Teddy Roosevelt, but he was at the very beginning of this century, and then Wilson. You know, was the worst president of the last hundred years, for sure. I am not going to try to debate history with you. Yeah, I probably know too much about it. Um, but anyway, so politics, you're kind of, you would slate yourself, I suspect, in the, just let us. Yeah, and spend less money. Yep. Don't make war. I am, I am, uh, I am a very fiscal conservative, um, you know, and, uh, um, and, and believe in smaller government and more state control, more local control. Um, I, and I believe that here, even. Even in a state that's trying to grab all the power, I still want less power for the federal and more for the state, even in a state that's trying to grab power from communities in a terrible way, like some of this housing code shit and stuff, it's like, what the hell are you doing? Why? Why? You want to increase housing costs? Well, that's a good way to do it. Yep. Let's, let's do this. Let's fix the roads. Let me not, let me not rattle my teeth out when I drive down to Denver. When we like have been growing for the last 30 years, we should actually have a very positive quality of life engagement. Yeah. Exactly. And engagement, you know, from, from all levels. It's. it's, I would, I'm definitely, you know, conservative, believe in small government. Um, I believe in God and, uh, um, all those, all those things that, that would make me, you know, a Republican. Um, the things Except for the fact that the Republican party is also kind of nasty. It's gross right now. You know, I'm like Where do I find myself? You know, and, and, you know, you try to be in, in, in the restaurant business, you know, I, I find myself, you know, being a little bit more socially, um, liberal, sure. You know, I think that you're a closet libertarian to 60 percent of my guests are closet libertarian. I think you're right. I think you're right. But there's no money in it. Exactly. So they never have power. It's never going to happen. So quit dream. Right. Somebody's got to manipulate something to be able to have the wherewithal to get funded to win our elections now. Exactly. Don't you think a lot of that goes back to the, how the structure has been set now? I mean, no term limitations and I, you know, come on, it's all been said. You can't go in. Flat broke and come out to be a multimillionaire, right? I mean, you, you, Hey, go make some money. Exactly. Exactly. I make 200, 000 a year, but I, my net worth increases by 2 million. Yes. Come on, that should not happen. And, and it should be a servant hearted, it should be a servant hearted, servant hearted thing. Exactly. It's like local steak tanks. Our facilitators. Like, don't apply unless you've kind of been there, done that, achieved success, have built wealth that you don't actually need my ms, msly income. Source and then do your best to help other people do the same boy If we all you know if politicians worked on that kind of promise and premise But they're just attacked like who in their right mind like what would it take for Steve Taylor? To want to be the governor of Colorado. Oh yes. Or a state representative. I used to beg him to be the mayor. Right. I thought, you know, for some of the guys, he was thinking, Oh, he'd be great at it. Yeah, yeah. He's got just enough. Oh! Good guy, good cop, bad cop. Great charisma. Right. And always thinking, you know, that third step. Yeah. You know, he's always just. Two steps ahead. One or two steps ahead, yeah. And, uh, and, you know, I think that, I think those people are invaluable. You know, sitting on. These boards, but why would he do that? Why, why, why would any of us, right? I mean, there's nothing in it. Other, you know, what's, what is truly in it? You got to drag through when I see somebody running for election. Now I'm like, what's in it for you? Exactly. Oh, okay. No, I got it. Okay. Yeah. And that's, and that's terrible. It should be what a great person. I, you know, somebody I really can finally get behind, but there's always that other, I can't wait for our first woman president. Yeah. And I was terrified that that. Example role model would be Hillary Clinton that seemed like like do not make girls look up to that person for the next hundred years Like that's almost terrible. Yeah, like that's almost a crime right there. Not to mention any of her crime. It's not to mention any other Just give me a good awesome woman. I've met lots of them that I would far gladly absolutely for president over Absolutely, and now I wonder will it happen I mean, they're way too smart. Women are way too smart to do, get into that. Yeah. Right. No, you're probably right. that jump into the fire. Right. That want power. Yeah. And can't confess their mistakes. Um, well, we've talked quite a bit about politics. Are you going to? You're going to run maybe after you sell the silver girl, you can be a mayor. Oh boy, no, I don't know. I'm going to be on my farm, man. Yeah, no, I just want to get some tractor time. Right, that's some relax time, yeah. I like it. Politics has always fascinated me, you know, and the ability to sit and negotiate a deal and to work with people, you know, being on different boards. being part of our, our downtown for 30 years and, uh, working with such great, such great people. Our DDA D, you know, the old DBA, which no longer exists under the, uh, under the office of the DDA, uh, so many great people. And we need to rebirth that again. I definitely think so. And it was. I, you know, I sat around a table with, you know, 12, 14, 16 people of which I probably shared the same opinion sometimes with two or three. And uh, but we could always, we always found a way to, exactly. I know. Yeah. Nobody ever. Shouted us down, egged our house, I was never arrested, put your address on social media as a place you should rob, whatever. Well, it's uh, may we get back to a more civil society. You know, it's one thing, I'm a small town guy too, right? And in a small town, we have people... Also on every side of opinion, and they're going to be there 10 years from now. Yeah. And you better learn how to be friends. Exactly. And appreciate them for just the way they are. Yeah. I mean, just that, that appreciation of the, of, of other humans. Of the other. Yeah. And from that point of view, even if you completely disagree, you know, it's kind of a lost art. I did a talk a while back, uh, welcoming the stranger, uh, just about appreciating people that. Have different thinking styles than you and, uh, you know, I think that's okay and I sense the same for you. Like you probably like it when you have some tattooed up nose ring wearing gauges girl that has the ability to talk philosophy or You know something interesting beyond your level and you're like, wow, you're Didn't see that coming. You know, and it's, it's, you're, you're right. And that's the, again, the blessing of, of, of our, our concepts and our restaurants is we see so many different people. I mean, you want to, you want to get a great cross section and I'm so, so blessed. You want to get a great cross section of who lives in Fort Collins, come spend a day at Silvergrill. Right. Right. We have the greatest people in the world that live in Northern Colorado. And they're way different from each other and they're family with each other. Absolutely. At the same time. At the same time. Yeah. And it is a, it is a absolute blessing. I dig that. Um, let's talk about this lady that you fell in love with. 30 years ago and then married five years ago, six years ago. Give me the credit for the year. Uh, six years ago. Yeah, no Jackie. Um, uh, my best friend, um, my, my business partner, um, everything. Uh, she, you know, uh, stuck with me through, uh, you know, Toiling and, you know, it was my sounding board when she, you know, when I would come when you were wanting to get a different job. Yeah, and, uh, and you know, it would keep me on the right path and you guys were together this whole time like going back to Sullivan's. Yeah, all we stayed together the whole time. No children. No children. Never got married. Never got married live together. Mostly live together off and on. Okay, we, uh, we, yeah, it was, it was, I mean, I think it was always gonna happen, but We didn't know how and when it was going to happen. And, uh, I wasn't, you know, I wasn't able to, she deserves something so much more than what I was. And I had to be the right man in my head, my heart, um, to, to give her everything that she deserves. And, uh, it, it took a while for me to grow up and get that done, but we had an amazing. wedding. We got married on our farm. Uh, I proposed her in the chicken coop. Uh, and she said, yes. And, uh, then we, uh, I let her kind of pick from there. I said, you know, life, life can be whatever you want to be as far as a wedding goes. Um, but I just want to pitch this at you. What if. We, uh, built a barn and got married here on the farm and then we get to keep our own wedding venue and we get to be in it every day. And so we, uh, we, uh, we did that and, uh, it took an extra year for us to be able to get married, but yeah, exactly, but we got it done and it was amazing. Um, we were surrounded by exactly the people that we wanted, you know, when you're getting married at 20, 21, 22 years old, 25 years old. How many of those people are still your friends? And now we were surrounded by truly the people that have been with us for 20 years. We, we had the greatest. Party and wedding I could have ever imagined. Um, still the best day of my life. Um, the happiest day of my life. Um, and, uh, She's, she's my everything. It's so great to watch her. She works, uh, at group publishing. Okay. So she works 40 hours a week. Um, and then she, uh, then I let her come and work with me all weekend. It's Silver Girl and Verins. So she, she works, uh, seven days a week, right, right alongside with me. Never complains, always thinking about how to make the business better, how to be better as a, as a couple, how to be, how to serve each other, how to serve our staff, how to serve our guests. So she's an HR specialist. Oh, okay. So I have the unfair advantage. Right. You know, a lot of people in the restaurant business are not HR people. No. And, uh, and it's probably the weakest part of any of those organizations. Yeah. And it moves too fast. There's too much. Right. And FMLHA acts. There's so much. And different things. Right. So much. And. My wife could be a lawyer. I mean, I should, I should have put her through law school when I was, when I was not making any money anyhow. And, uh, but she, she's great. I mean, it is, she keeps us up to speed. She does it with a gentle hand with our teams so they can understand it and they get the reason for why we're doing it. So we probably do a lot more paperwork than other restaurants do, but I know at the end of the day. Where I stand with everything and that I feel good about how we're handling, you know, a disciplinary situation or, or, uh, you know, heaven forbid a termination, which thankfully we don't have a lot of those. Um, but, and also just on the beneficial side, you know, for staff, are we doing everything the right way and getting as much as we can for the size of organization that we are, are we doing everything right? Are we treating. them with the utmost care and respect that we can give them. And I, and I know that through my wife, that we're able to do that. Yeah, that's really cool. She's great. What, uh, what would you say was the thing that drew her to you back in those early moon house days? I was a really charming, drunk, um, Um, I really have no idea. Yeah. I I have no idea. It was, it was, uh, you made her laugh. I, you know, I, I think maybe So she knew you were Yeah. Maybe she recognized in you that you were more than maybe what you were appreciative for at the time. I could probably achieve more than what I was doing. Yeah. And, uh, um, I really, you know, that's a, that's a, another great source. It's easy to believe somebody that believes that. Yeah, about you, especially if they're a really beautiful woman. Oh, she's amazing. You know, um, you know The, I don't, I can't say enough. You wouldn't be here today. I would not be, I wouldn't be remotely the man. What, uh, other than her striking good looks, what else attracted you to her? She's incredibly witty. I will never let her know that. Um, she's, uh, she is funny. Um, she always says she should have been a comedian. Uh, and there is some truth to that. I am funnier, but, uh, she is, uh, she's a hoot, uh, and her work ethic. I can tell you there's a. That her family, uh, and her, you know, that's probably one of the things that I was very attracted to, um, was her, her family's work ethic and what she, you know, she believes like I did when she wanted something, she went out and got a job and, uh, that's how she got something. And then, you know, she worked, you know, 18 years to get out of the house, um, to, to get onto her own thing. And, uh, did it, you know, moved away from home and then moved out of this very humble roots and then came, you know, to Colorado on a whim, um, was supposed to be kind of a summer short term thing. And, um, then we met this cute guy at Mood House and yeah. And then she met me after that. And, uh, it was, uh, it's just, you know, it's just worked. You know. There's sometimes there are people that you don't mind doing things for, uh, and there's not for any reason, even, yeah. And you're like, I just want to do something for you. And, uh, it's really easy to do that for her. Um, and she's such a, she's such a giver and she's truly servant hearted, you know, in every sense of the word. And when I knew that that's what would make us win at. Uh, whatever we did together as far as ownership, we would win because of her together. And she's, she's, she's your helper, regardless of whether the fact that she's actually smarter and more capable than you, but she put herself in the position of your helper in some ways. Oh, I learned something every week I work with her, you know, she's, it is. She, she can bust around those restaurants faster than she's never met a stranger. So she's, she, she will know everybody, everybody's story. Um, if you work for us, if you've just been there for the first time, or if you're there for 50 years eating, she knows your story. She knows who you are and the. Everybody, Wikipedia mind. Oh, it's unbelievable. It just sticks. Yep. It just sticks. And it's a, it's a wonderful blessing. And then, you know, we go home, we farm. Yeah. Yeah. You know, so when I, when I leave here tonight, I got another two, three hours left. So it's a, you know, it is muck installs. Throwing hay, scrubbing stock tanks, you know, getting a, you didn't tell her you're on the local experience. I'm hoping that some of that will be done by the time I get there, right? Oh, she'll have it all done by the time I get it. So yeah, it's a, it's a great dynamic. Have you got, you guys. Don't have any children. No children. No. Have you thought about it? Tried? Uh, no, not at all. Didn't try not to, didn't try to, well, tried not to for quite a while. Yeah. Tried not to for a while because there was no, don't want to bring that guy. Uh, so no, we never, it was. We were always both so career focused and Yeah. And work focused that, that didn't have a place for us. You know, how was I going to be a great partner to her? Have a ch having a child when I worked every day. Yeah. You know, and, and for months in a row. Yeah. Yeah. You know, that that wouldn't. work. And, uh, and we had, we didn't have any money and, and not that, you know, you need money to raise children. My parents did it and they did it. Right. They did a very capable job with me. They did a great job with my brother and sister. Yeah. Yeah. You know, so I, I think that at different times, it's probably, you know, regrets in life. Do I have a regret? Yeah. I probably have a regret that I don't have any children. And, uh, um, it would have been, you know, now as you get older and I think about what a great grandfather, my, my dad would be, um, and how fun that would be to watch that relationship. And, uh, you know, we scratch our itch with, uh, you know, we. We have a few, we breed a few horses, uh, so we get some babies and we get to watch them and it's, it's different, but it's the same. And, you know, they've, you know, it's, it's, it's a, it's a fun way of doing it. It works for us, you know? And I think that, yeah, yeah. I I'm okay. Uh, I should have finished college and I maybe should have had a kid. My, uh, my wife and I, for about 10 years have. expected that we wouldn't have children. Um, because we're 20 years married now and, and we've been hosting exchange students and I, I would like to recommend that to you because in about 10 years, you're going to be out of this restaurant and you're going to want to travel the world and these kids that you give a semester to. Once in a while, uh, I wonder if that would, cause you're kind of in a place now where you could be like the most amazing host parents ever and it's not like foster care, like you're not going to have all this chaos and stuff. They're like some rich person, families, kids from Belgium or from Germany or from Japan or whatever. So anyway, let me just plant that seed with you. We're on like number 11 is coming in, in January, Harvey from Australia. Which will be our first, uh, English speaking exchange student, or that native English, right? First language. But, but, I don't know, for, for your place in life, uh, probably right now you could be an amazing host parent. Boy, that would be pretty fun for somebody. Yeah, yeah. You get a lot of advantage. Uh, we can talk afterwards about this because, uh, You know, they're always looking for families to host and stuff. And it's pretty straightforward. You can kind of, you can shop it like it's Walmart. You're like, Oh, Harvey from Australia, badminton and ping pong and long hikes. It's kind of like, uh, what's it? Not Twitter, but the, uh, the match. com or, you know, it's like you can actually look at all these kids and be like, Oh, I want that one. I'm going to swipe left, swipe right. Anyway, I digress. We better move fast through the, um, faith. Part of the conversation so that you can get home and muck stalls. Yes You're from kind of rural Colorado sounds like faith was at least part of your journey very very strong for me We you know, it was every very very interesting and I can make a long story out of every short story So you gotta forget I take it. We grew up in in Nebraska and our little Lutheran church was very close to us, moved away pretty young, would go back and always visit grandma and grandpa. And I was always the kid that wanted to stay with grandma and grandpa and I'd stay there all summer long. Any chance I could stay with grandma and grandpa, work on the farm, do anything, I was all about it. Grandma and grandpa went to the Mennonite church. Oh wow. So, uh, so I had a lot of exposure to the Mennonite church, which is how my dad grew up. And, uh, you know, so it was, it was interesting, you know, when you go to church, there would be half the parking lot might be horse and buggy. The other half is cars. Right. So it was a little bit more progressive. Um, where there was For a Mennonite church. Yeah. For, there was, there was, you know, the strict, you know, um, you know, Mennonite followers. And then there was, you know, a little bit more loose, like my grandparents were, my grandparents, you know, spoke German in the house. I didn't, wow. I did not know what they were talking about half the time. Uh, and, uh. And they were, you know, very, um, very faith bound, and, um, So was it Mennonite and Lutheran then? So we are, we're Lutheran here, um, and, uh, my wife is Catholic, so, pfft, big scandal. Right. Uh, yeah. Where I come from in North Dakota, they're basically, it's Lutherans and Catholics. That's it, right? And everything's cool. Until you start dating, seriously. Yeah, until you start talking about dating somebody. Yep, that's kind of how it works. Um, so, um, luckily for me, uh, Jackie's mom grew up Lutheran and her dad was Catholic. Oh, right on. So, so that was, uh, that was pretty easy to be honest. So Jackie's mom was... Basically, like she was pretty, just go back to Lutherans school. That's cool. When my, when my wife, uh, went to, uh, back home, uh, she was going to be godfather to one of our, uh, nieces and, um, godmother. I, our godmother. Godmother, I'm the godfather, Um, and she met with one of the nuns to, uh, and this is all kind of foreign. For me, I don't know that you had to get clearance. Yeah, so she went to get her clearance, and uh, they were decided, because we're very busy people, the nun agreed to meet with my wife over lunch. And, of course, my wife bows her head and says the Lutheran prayer. Right. And then gets a, um, we need to have a talk. Interesting. And so, it's whatever, she tells that story. Did you pass the test anyway? Did you pass the test? What's the Lutheran prayer? I, I think there's a lot of versions of it, you know, oh geez, we can put me right on the spot. I don't know. Uh, come Lord Jesus, be our guest, bless his food to us, be blessed. Oh yeah, that's, that's what we did for lunch prayer. Yeah. Oh, that's a Lutheran thing? I don't know. I don't know, that's what my family did. Uh, we were just talking about that the other day. Uh, I do like custom prayers every time and people are like, oh, that's fancy, you know. We, we get custom on the holidays. Oh, just for the holidays. I'm more, well, I don't pray most of the time, honestly, but like the other night, I, I barbecued a brisket on the grill for 12 hours and we had a nice meal. For 11 and a half hours, you were praying that came out. Right, exactly. It was delicious. And so I was like, I'm going to go beyond the cohort of blood, Jesus, be our guest. That's, uh, I think that's fair. How, like, you were kind of a restaurant manager party guy for a long time. Do you, do you, Reconcile that with faith and like was Jackie and I'm not saying I'm a party guy too, right? And I have faith. Yeah, I think that there's a you know, there's a lot of room for for, you know I think experiencing life and in faith and in all those things and life life should be about the experience Yeah, my mother passed away last February and and it became very clear to me that We're doing this for the experience of life. You know, sitting here today is an experience that, you know, I'm blessed to have, you know, who put us here? I didn't put me here. You know, you, you asked me here and you asked me here because somebody told you to ask me here and, and I don't, I don't know. I don't know how that all works at all. Yeah. It all, excuse me, the universe, whatever, really, truly just appreciate the experiences and being able to enjoy them and go after them. And I got to tell you financially. That was those partying days. Remember some of the dumbest things I ever did, uh, but for great experiences and stories, holy cow, they were awesome. And, uh, uh, you know, are any of those people still in my life? No. Funny how that works. There's an old joke, uh, two thirds of my money I spent on booze and women and the rest, I just wasted. There you have it. Anyway, I digress. The truer words never spoken. But you think Jesus is pretty awesome. I love Jesus. There's no, that's, that's the only reason I'm, uh, Jesus spoke to me the day when I picked up the phone and called John. And, uh, and, uh, you know. Yeah. When you feel you're in the Lord's call. Yeah. Whatever that is. Like, you know, people talk about the universe or this and that. Yeah. You can feel it when you're in the right place. And you have to, you have to you were feeling increasingly uncomfortable at Hot Corner. Yeah. And it's like, okay, now I'm going to flow into this new place. And if it feels right, I should just not kick against it. No, you just have to, you have to be, I think, aware enough to, to, to heed those calls. Yeah. When they come. Those prompts. Yeah. Those calls. And then just. Go with it. You know, I, that's the only way I can, I can reconcile it in my brain, you know, is, you know, it was, it was so powerful for me when, when it was time to go. And it wasn't, it was, I was out of my hands. I don't know why I'm there. You know, I know there's another purpose for why I'm there. It's not to make money and to, to do that. All the fun stuff. How many people would say that you impacted their life over the hot corner? I would hope thousands, I would hope, I would hope thousands and, uh, you know, people reach out to me that I haven't seen in 20 years and, uh, you know, I had a young man that, uh, that was teaching, uh, he started a school, inner city, Philadelphia, uh, came back and asked me if I remembered him. I was like, true. Of course I remember you. I'll never forget you. Um, and, uh, he said, do you remember the conversation you had with me when you told me that the girls were outworking me and, uh, and I was, and I needed to step up my game. And I said, I absolutely. I remember we're standing right at the host stand at Austin's on harmony and those girls were outworking yet. And he said, you were right. And he goes, that was my wake up call. I hated you that day and I've loved you ever since. And uh, so I, you know, I hope that, yeah, it was great, you know, and he said, and he He's like, I think about you and I'm like, you know. I don't think that anybody ever thinks about me when I'm, you know, when I'm out of eyeshot. When we go through our days. Yeah. I'd never think, Oh, are you, people are talking about me? Do they have something to say about me? That's, that's a very foreign feeling for me. Yeah. And, uh, so to have him say those, that was, that was really special. Yeah. So I hope. You know, sometime in my career, I'm supposed to do that for somebody there or a guest or something. I don't know. You probably changed a lot more lives than you have any idea of. I don't know. And, and I'll, and I'll never know about it. Uh, but hopefully, you know, it's that smile that you give somebody who's having the worst day of their life. I don't know it. And they go on and it's changes their, their day and what they're going to do. I don't know. Yeah. I don't know. I gotta have faith in that. That's an interesting thing about faith. Yeah. I, uh, I invited one of my members out for breakfast the other day and she's like, you're like one of my favorite people to have breakfast with period. Like of course I will. And I'm like, shit, like I don't deserve that. Yeah. And that's really, but thank you. I'm honored and I'm looking forward to breakfast. I didn't that. Oh, and we didn't do it at the silver grill. We're going to ginger and Baker. I'm sorry. Man, ginger should be recorded. Yeah, they are doing. Um, final segment, the loco experience. Yeah. The craziest experience that you're willing to share with our listeners. Oh my gosh. There's many. There's a few. Yeah. I've been, I've been blessed to have a lot of great experiences. You know, I was, uh, I was arrested on my very first date and thrown in jail with my wife, you know, I, with my wife, I was thrown in jail. She stayed in the car. So, uh, that, that's a good story. Um, and the cop did me right too. And I was like, listen, I'm on a first date, buddy. You better make this look good. So he, he literally picked me up off the ground and threw me under the hood of his car and cuffed me. Uh, and it was all for. Uh, I had lost my, um, I shouldn't have been driving anyhow, but I lost my license, not for anything. Drinking. Mom, dad, and that was all good. It was, uh, it was parking tickets or something, tickets speeding. Um, and so, uh, so that was a good one. She bailed me out of the show. What's that? How many speeding tickets do you have in your lifetime? Oh my gosh. At a time, uh... No, overall. Overall? When I was younger. I haven't had one... Yeah, I'm like 10 years in. I'm probably 10 Or 5 years in. But I probably had... There was probably a 2 or 3 year period where I had probably a dozen. Where I... I used to get one or two a year. And I would like... I actually, uh, you know where Thedford, Nebraska is? Heard it. It's up by Valentine. Oh, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, there was a time on the way back to North Dakota. This is a local experience I'll share with our listeners, and then you can do yours. Um, but we were heading to Nebraska, uh, or heading to Jamestown, North Dakota, where I'm from. Heading up through Valentine on 287, 281 rather. And, uh, there was, uh, I'm going, like, 90. Um. Which is about appropriate, but it is faster than the prevailing crowd. Yes. And, uh, a cop comes by on the tail end of, I was leading a bunch of cars, and he comes by the tail end of some cars and flashes his lights and pulls off to the side to turn around. But then he's gotta wait for a few cars to come by before he can turn around and come catch me. And I pushed it down to the floor. I had this Volkswagen, uh, Golf TDI. It'll go about a hundred and ten. Sweet. And I took it up to a hundred and ten and then I hid it in the town of Thedford. Like I pulled into this town, went like two and a half blocks in and turned off my headlights and just sat there with my wife. And watch for the cop car to go by on the highway. Uh, anyway, uh, that's a Nebraska story. That is a good one. It's, not my craziest experience, by any means, but when you're rolling 110 and you know, there's a cop behind you catching up to you, it's a pretty intense situation. He's going way more than 110. He's going more than 110. But I had, I had a diesel Jetta, you know, basically a Golf. I couldn't go any faster. I had 113, I think. Anyway. You were the only diesel Jetta. Golf, golf in all of Bedford. In all of Nebraska, there was only a couple of Volkswagens. Yeah, that time especially. Hundred percent. Everybody else had a Chevy. Yeah, if they drove through that town, they were gonna come get me. So, and I was with my wife, who's like, A rule follower, we're just going to chill here for a few minutes, baby. We're just like 10 minutes. We'll be leaving here in 10 minutes or less. It's worth it. Trust me, because that's like a 200 ticket. I promise. That's an awesome one. No, I, I, that was my getting arrested. Um, my very first date is a good story to tell. I, um, Rode, uh, rode a bull when I was managing the Sundance. Okay. Got on the, got on the back of a bull. That was A real bull? A real bull. Okay. Uh, we used to do live bull riding out there. Uh, and somebody brought it up one time, and I was like, Man, I'm not gonna pass that up. Who, how many men How long Really, how many men get on the back of a bull? I will though. I would, I would get them. Oh, it's worth, I would say. I mean, if I was 30, I'd be at Lafayette. Yeah. They move really fast. There is, there is something about sitting on the back of a bull and, uh, it was great experience all the way through the, uh, stock handler and the stock owner let me pick my bull. So I'm like. What are you going to do? I mean, what do you do? I'm like, I go, how do I get a whip? I'm like, give me, yeah, I'm like, find me the biggest, meanest looking bull you can find. Oh, I'd have been like, give me the slowest, oldest bull. Retrospect again, would have been nice to have you there. So I pull Tornado. I pull Tornado is a gorgeous, gorgeous bull, big long horns on him. Uh, and gorgeous. Hide smaller bowl, not a real big bowl, but it kind of a smaller bowl. Still, you know, bigger than me, like 10 times, exactly. It was, uh, you know, it was, I'm, I'm walking around kind of in the, in the pens back with the Cowboys and, uh, I'm like, you know, I'm realizing that I have a very unfair advantage because at the time I'm six one and I'm going at that time, probably three Oh five, three, 10. Oh. And, uh, I'm like, you were big Al more than big Al. I was very, I was, I was a much bigger Al. And, uh, I'm like, this is a very unfair advantage for these, for me, that bull is used to you little five foot six dudes that weigh about 110 pounds. And it turns out he barely notices. No, he did not care about that. He put me on the ground extremely quick. It was great. You're not riding a sheep, Al. No, it was not. If you're a 300 pound guy is on a sheep, that's different. But a bull, they don't care. Didn't care. It was not a, it was not an advantage. I was, I was sitting on the bull and we're talking about, um, how we're gonna. Tie me in on this bowl, right? And I'm like, well, I'm asking the Cowboys. I'm like, Hey, I've never done this before. How do you do this? And they're like, listen, you got to wrap it around here. You're going to wrap it back through here. Weave it in and out between your knuckles. Then you're never coming off. And I was like, great. What if I want to come off easy? And I'm like, I'm like. Man, I'm not even thinking about that, because I'm thinking in my mind, I'm writing for eight seconds. This poor bull is going to have to... Exactly. tolt the three year old punk guy around for a while. He is going to get the biggest lesson of his life. And, uh, I am going to do the Hollywood dismount, land on my feet, my wife's going to kiss me on the lips, and... It's obvious your dad was a small animal guy. Yeah. Yeah. I did not learn about these big animals. And, uh, so, we're, we've had, we've got all the discussion. Two of the cowboys are just all about this and they're, they're ready to tie me on. They want to see you ride that bull. They are, they're in my camp. They are psyching me up. They're like, it's going to happen. So they're getting ready to tie me on. Stock owner comes over. And he's, he's kind of listening to this conversation. He's like, absolutely. He goes in the bubble loop. And I was like, Oh, that's about the least sexy thing you could ever call it. Can we call it the death grip or something like that? Don't call it the bubble loop. It is literally where you take the bull rope up over your hand. You make a bubble. Oh. Just lay it back across the So you can barely hold on. You can't, there's nothing to hold on. You remotely get a pull on it, it unstraps your hand and you're on the ground. And that is exactly what happened. Oh. I, uh, I look at that like So if they interlaced your fingers and stuff You would have a little bit more You'd have been a lot more bruised up when you finally hit the ground after three and a half seconds instead of two seconds. I've had a few less brain cells, you know, uh, than I already do. And it was, it was, it was awesome to feel the power of the animal underneath you to be looking down at the back of his head. And then, you know, I'm like, I don't even know which hand, which hand do I tie in? Whichever one you want. And I'm like, I don't even know. I'm right handed. I'm like, you're just right handed. And they're like. Well, we can make an argument, so I'm sitting on the back of the boat and we're having this, you know, philosophical conversation about right handed, left handed, how do you do this? You know, well, you're, you're on this side of the gate, you should probably tie in your left hand. He's like, come out this way. And I'm like, and he's going to come out and he's going to spin, and I'm like, well, alright, well let's do that. I'll just react. Yeah, and then there's, it kind of gets that perfect quiet. You know, I'm, I'm, my, I'm strapped to the bull barely in the bubble. It sounds so lame. So I've got the bubble loop in my hand. I'm back to this big, beautiful, all muscle animal. And, uh, you know, the, everything's just quiet and it's just like that perfect moment where you're like, yeah, yeah. And then you nod your head, the gate swings open, you look out and everything just kind of blurs, you know, all the people, everything, everything just all breaks loose. I look down and the bull's gone. And I'm like, I'm like that wily coyote, you know, my legs are moving and I hit the ground. And the two cowboy buddies of mine are like, Get up! Come here! He's going to kill you! You're a dead man! And so they hauled me out of there, and uh, you know, you could say I did it. You were a one buck chump, basically. I was a one buck chump. I'm not even sure he bucked. I think he just, he might have walked, I don't know. He like side settled real quick. And you're one, what was the bubble, the bubble hoop? My bubble loop. It was gone. It was gone. That's a pretty good story. I like that one. It was a, it was a great day, you know, and. Would you try it again? Oh, absolutely. Would you? Alright. I am, I'm game. Life is experience. If you find an opportunity for me and you to go try to ride a bull together, and I'm on an old, shitty, tired bull. But I'll do it with you. Three legged. If you're down, I'm down. Yeah, yeah. Three legs would be great. Yeah. Yeah. There, it's a, it's a, life is about the experience and I think you know that. I agree. And otherwise we wouldn't be called the Loco Experience. Um, I'm going to invite people to go down to Silver Grill or Vern's and look for another story or more details about your bull ride or menu. I've got many of them. Um, but also to just check you out on LinkedIn or whatever, but, but just go to the Silver Grill. Uh, or Verns. We're very proud of what we do there, and, uh, we'd love to share it with everybody. Take your people and, uh, it, it's, it's great. Uh, my, my staff, my team, my wife, uh, our guests, they're greatest people in the world. Do you have any people, uh, you wanna shout out in particular that are, I I would, it's, it's hard, hard to name'em all. I, it would leave people out if you do, you know, I, yeah. I don't want to miss anybody. You know, I'm, I'm my, my dad. You know, my wife, those are the two I can't, I can't miss. Um, uh, the, the people, Rex and John, you know, the people that didn't want to miss on me at, at silver grill and Nick and Val, you know, and every one of the people that work there, every one of the people that have worked for me for the last 30 at hot corner, uh, Can't thank them enough for helping me become the man I am today. Uh, and giving me so many of those experiences to learn from, um, sitting here with you, I'm super thankful to get a chance to conjure up all these memories. Are there any other institutions that. You should care take for? Oh boy, that's a great question. We get, we get a lot of questions about that. We might have to do that in episode two. There is a, I told my wife this morning, you know, we could open up a restaurant every six months, every month for six months straight for just the offers we have on the table right now. Just to come over and take over an existing. Uh, I think people are very excited about what we're doing, um, and, and how we're doing it and the honor that we give to the people that we did before it because they're the most important people, you know, as well. Um, so have to, have to remember the past and do good in the future. Fair enough. Well, appreciate you much for being here today. Thank you so much for asking. And, uh, look forward to the next conversation. Thanks for the bourbon. All right. Godspeed.
The Top Episodes
Start Here
